AN INVESTIGATION OF CHEMICAL TEMPERATURE REGULATION

Abstract

The rate of O2 consumption and CO2 production of 3 trained dogs were measured while the animals were slowly cooled in an electrically shielded metabolism chamber. The onset of shivering was noted by electrical, mechanical and visual methods. In the electrical method the action currents were picked up by small skin electrodes placed over shivering muscles, and were amplified to operate a loud speaker, a cathode ray oscilloscope and a recording electronic integrator. On cooling, before shivering started there was an avg. increase of metabolic rate of 7% over basal. During the first 20 mins. of shivering the increase over basal was 30%. Hence the increase of metabolic rate without shivering has little effect in combating exposure to cold.