HEAT REGULATION AND WATER EXCHANGE

Abstract

The basal ganglia of rabbits were heated or cooled by passing water through a double tube (previously installed under anesthesia). The blood specific gravity (by the falling drop method) increased greatly when the basal ganglia were thus cooled (by 0.0065 in 2 cases). Heat reversed this effect. Liver denervation by section of the hepatic artery and of the right esophageal vagus entirely prevents the effects of cooling and heating the basal ganglia upon blood concentration. Average liver solids percentages (determined in triplicate) in young adult rabbits of identical stock were: 6 normal rabbits, 28.3; 2 normal rabbits after ether, 28.1; 5 rabbits during "puncture fever," 26.6; 2 "puncture fever" rabbits with cooled brains, 26.4; 2 "puncture fever" rabbits with heated brains, 27.4; 5 rabbits with liver denervation (4 with additional procedures), 22.9. Histologically "puncture fever" or "cold fever" livers show swollen cells with obliterated sinuses. Livers of rabbits with heated basal ganglia show prominent veins and sinusoids and normal appearing cells. Concentration of the blood favors, but is perhaps not essential to, the production of neurogenic fevers.