MEDICAL RESEARCH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19546, 7 April 1926, Page 10

MEDICAL RESEARCH

FOX AND TORTOISE USED. i FROG THAT WORKED HARD. A fox who volunteered his services, and a tortoise who was taken on the staff in place of a frog dismissed for working too hard, are among the helpers of science mentioned in the annual report of the Medical Research Council, issued recently. Of the fox it is stated: — * 4 ‘An interesting chance observation was made during the year. A wild fox voluntarily visited the Mill Farm (one of the Council laboratories), and was fpund in an open field to be sick and jaundiced. “Mr Dankin and Dr. Eaidlaw proved it to be infected by spirochaetal jaundice, which fatally infected some men in the trenches during the late war, caused the deaths of some miners in (Scotland last year, and which recent work by Okell and Pugh has shoYvn to be not uncommon in dogs, ■which it may in the opinion of some veterinary surgeons, be mistaken for distemper.”

Unfortunately the story ends there, and what happened to the fox is not stated.

A tortoise is also on the staff, his deliberation making him a more valuable assistant than the frog whom he put on the unemployed list. He helps in the study of physiology of muscular work, (and is kept at Cambridge University. He has got his “blue,” or his degree, or whatever it is a tortoise gets, for his slowness. Formerly a frog was used in the tests for heat production in isolated muscles, but the tortoise was found to be a much better helper, because his muscular response w’as so slow that a more accurate analysis could be made.

Investigation into the longevity of the male members of the classes recorded in Burke’s ‘‘Peerage and Baronetage,” and of eminent men as recorded in the National Dictionary of Biography, has been completed. Over 30,000 accurate records were available. Tributes are paid to the widespread work of women in research. Miss V. H. George, devotes her time to examining and measuring skulls, another to inspecting worms, and Miss May Smith is studying the effects of rubber key caps on typewriting efficiency, and the question of telegraphists’ cramp.

Two of the Council’s workers voluntarily acquired infection by swallowing larval stages recovered from pike sent from Switzerland. Others submitted themselves to a wind tunnel erected in the institute grounds, fitted with ;heating and humidifying apparatus, land with a moving platform to discover the effects of air currents on the body lin exercise or at rest and in various clothing.