Heated Rats, Masculine Mice

Most heroic of modern therapeutic measures is artificial fever treatment. If a patient with gonorrhea, St. Vitus' dance or atrophic arthritis is willing to lie snugly in a hot box or expose himself to short-wave radiation for periods varying from two to ten hours, sometimes several times a week, while his temperature is pushed up seven or eight degrees, he stands a good chance of recovery. Whether the intense heat kills the germs, or stimulates the body to produce germicidal substances doctors do not know. Only ill effect of intense heat was delirium, now prevented by copious draughts of salt water to replace the salts lost in sweat. Artificial fever up to 107.5DEG F. does not injure the brain, but the precise effect of such an abnormal temperature on mental processes has not yet been discovered.

Curious about the mental effects of short-wave radiation, Dr. Hughbert Clayton Hamilton of Philadelphia's Temple University tried heating rats. Last week he described his experiment to the American Psychological Association meeting at Columbus, Ohio. He divided the rats into two groups of 21 each, sent each group through a U-shaped maze once a day for 100 days. Every animal in the first group was subjected to short-wave radiation for two minutes, before each of the first 45 trials. Then temperatures were raised from 99.5 to 103 or 104.5DEG F. No radiation was given this group for the remaining 55 trials. The second group of rats received no radiation at all. Results: 1) the heated rats averaged one-third fewer errors per trial than the unirradiated rats; 2) the difference was consistent through the first 75 trials for each group, showing that the effects of radiation on the irradiated group lingered on for 30 trials after treatment was discontinued; 3) the irradiated rats lost their tails, gained weight more slowly than the unirradiated group.

Dr. Hamilton could offer no explanation for the increased intelligence and lost tails of the irradiated group other than the fact that radiation stimulates circulation of the blood, sends more fresh blood through the brain and body. Whether increased intelligence might be obtained in humans he did not dare conjecture. Only mental result of artificial fever noticed so far is that the patient's outstanding personality characteristics are exaggerated after treatment.

When young Dr. Robert Towner Hill of Indiana University's School of Medicine performs an experiment he ponders the results with true scientific caution and does not commit himself until he knows exactly what he is talking about. Last week he revealed to reporters an astonishing secret he had guarded closely for three years. In 1935, he said, he castrated several male mice and planted ovaries in their transparent ears. He wanted to observe the activity of the borrowed organs but nothing happened. Disappointed, he went off on a three months' vacation, forgot all about the mice. When he returned he discovered that they had regained their sex. Although they were not fertile they were again "complete males in temperament."

Why did female sex glands produce male characteristics? Ovaries have a potential sex duality, said Dr. Hill. They act as female glands when in females because in their natural setting they have a high internal temperature which inhibits potential male activity.* Ovaries grafted to the deep muscles of castrated male mice continue to act as female glands because of the relatively high internal temperature of 93DEG F. in the deep muscles. But ovaries grafted in the ears of castrated males, although they remain female glands, produce secondary male characteristics. "This male activity," said Dr. Hill, "is brought about by the ovary temperature being reduced to around 80DEG F. which is approximately the normal temperature of the male testis." Many female mammals, he added, "retain potential male possibilities during embryonic development. . . . Male mammals do not retain female potentialities during development for reasons unknown." Other experimenters have changed the sex of female birds and amphibians to male, but Dr. Hill claims that his experiments "are the first to clearly show a controlled and modified form of sex reversal in mammals."

* There are local differences in the temperature of higher animals, since heat production and heat loss vary considerably in different parts of the body. However, the circulation of the blood tends to bring about a mean temperature of the internal organs.

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