MUKTESAR, FOR THE TWO YEARS ENDING THE 31ST MARCH, 1924 11
for pumping the water supplies of the station. In previous reports it
has been stated that projects have been taken up for the extension of
the present source of power, either by the installation of extra oil engines
or by the development of a hydro-electric scheme . Financial considera-
tions have precluded the materialization of these projects, but having
regard to the utter dependence of the station as it has now grown upon
a continuous power supply, for pumping of water, lighting, and running
of technical machinery, serious disaster may result if a standby set is
not available for the development of essential power when there is a
breakdown of the existing set.
Centrifugation was undertaken of 18,504 litres of blood in 1922-23
(an increase of 80 per cent. over the figures of the preceding year) and of
11,878 litres in 1923-24 (a decrease of 30.4 per cent.). The decrease in
the latter year was due to relegation of a very large proportion of the
routine work to the Bareilly branch laboratory during the cold weather
of the year. It is hoped that the figures of 1922-23 will not be reached
in future years, unless there are some unexpected technical developments
in connection with the routine products prepared for issue from the
laboratory. In past years, Directors of this laboratory have had much
ground for fear from a breakdown in the centrifuge plant of the labora-
tory, upon which the separation of a profitable yield of serum depended.
A very expensive and efficient system of centrifuges was installed in 1920
and has worked well since, but owing to the increasing demands that
have been made upon it in succeeding years some anxiety has been
felt that it would not last long with the strain that has been placed upon
it, both from the demands of routine serum production and experimenta-
tion. In 1923-24, the system was relieved considerably by the trans-
ference of a very large portion of the anti-rinderpest manufacture to
Bareilly, during the colder months, where buffaloes are employed entirely
as serum producers; the spontaneous sinking of the solid elements in
the oxalated blood of the buffalo renders available a sufficient yield of
plasma at once, and it has been computed that the extra amount obtain-
able after centrifugation would not be commensurate with the cost of
centrifugation at that station. Further, as the outcome of the researches
carried out at the laboratory during the last three years the processes of
manufacturing the two chief products prepared for issue, namely, anti
rinderpest serum and anti-hæmorrhagic septicæmia serum, have been
perfected and simplified to such an extent that both can be undertaken
relatively much more cheaply at the plains sub-station during the colder
months, and the expensive centrifuge plant at Muktesar need hardly be
called upon except for carrying out experimental tests.
The gas production, for heating purposes, at the laboratory showed
a marked increase in both years. In 1922-23 it reached 453,600 cubic
feet, an increase of 56 per cent. over the preceding year, and in 1923-24,
it was 578,800 cubic feet (an increase of 28 per cent.). The installation
of the new steam sterilizing plant, which is now in full working order,
will relieve the gas production plant, however, very considerably, and