The San Francisco call., 1896-02-16

| period under all sorts of conditions is the
| same for piece of heart muscle with no
nerves in it as it is for the heart and its
nerves together, and many turtles must
| die that sufficiently extensive studies may
| be made
Miss Briggs ardent efforts to locate the
| residence of life-energy in the heart seems
a little like the efforts to find where the
| soul resides.
There are lots of other interesting and
important original investigations being
| pursued by advanced students in this as In
otner departments Of the university. Orig
inal search for truth is the spirit that per-
vades Stanford University.
There is Miss Mosher, postgraduate
student and instructor in hygiene, who
has tackled the disputed question about
the natural physiological difference be-
tween the breathing of men and women.
The books have always said that men
breathe more with the abdominal
muscles and the women more with the
thoracic muscles. But the books are al
ways being corrected and great physiolo-
gists are now disputing about this point.
Thousands of graphic records displaying
every respiratory movement of men have
have stood and breathed that machines
might tell just how much they used the
upper, middle and lower parts of their
chests in respiration. OF course there are
| fewer opportunities to make such meas
urements of large number of women
than of men.
Miss Mosher is supplying that lack
somewhat. Over in the girls gymnasium
- L. f. G.
apparatus, and every girl in the university
is being harnessed up beside cylinder
that rolls ribbon of paper past pen
points, while a long pendulum, as it
swings on the wall, clips needle through
a dish of mercury, and so every second
makes an electric connection which jerks
another pen on the record and marks the
time beside the curves which exhibit the
muscle movements.
Sometimes rubber tubes are clasped
around the body at three places and the
degree of movement at inspiration aud
expiration is recorded as the result of the
changing air-pressure in the tubes. Then
there are other instruments which,
when attached to the body, serve
to convey the respiratory movements
to the machine. There are also
spirometers and so on for measuring lung
capacity and tapeline measurements are
recorded. 1t requires a great number of
observations TO supply material for deduc-
tions of any value, but Miss Mosher has
got SO far along that she expects to demon
strate in a scientific paper, to be produced
this year, that when women breathe
mainly with their costal mucsles it is the
result Of tight clothing, and not according
TO natures plan.
The Stanford girls breathe for science in
their ordinary tight clothing, and then in
loose and pretty gymnasium costumes OF
blue blouse and short skirt, in which they
daily trip over the short path between the
side door of Roble Hall and the gymna-
sium in the rear. One of Miss Mosher's
difficulties is that it is often hard for the
girls to breathe naturally and without
conscious effort when they are hitched to
the machine. 1t is Miss Mosher's opinion
that IN many cases tight clothing has
changed the type of breathing, but that
nature intended women to breathe as
deeply and freely as men. Miss Mosher's
experiments with Stanford girls will soon
give another Stanford University contri-
button to science.
There is another young lady who is put
ting very young mice in cold baths and
measuring the increased amount of car
bonic acid gas given off in respiration as a
| result of the increased consumption of
carbon in the natural effort of the body to
keep warm. 1t is rather delicate trick to
| measure Just the extra amount OF carbonic
acid gas in the breath of baby mouse
when 1t is feeling chilly. There is nothing
foolish about this. 1t is q known fact, of
course, that warm -blooded animals will
internally consume more carbon when the
body's heat needs 10 be kept up. There are
certain animals which for a very
short period-in some cases not more
than few hours after birth-do
not shave this power to increase
their consumption of carbon when more
heat is needed. The existence and the
lack of this power and its development
may be seen to constitute scientific prob
lem of interest to a scientist who is pur-
suing truth for its own sake. The stu
dents in the regular course of their lab
oratory work perform these and similar
physiological experiments with mice, but
the young lady mentioned has taken Ut
one definite, unsolved problem and is pur-
suing it. There is nothing very cruel in
the operation, because the mice are only
made little chilly and fixed SO that the
breath they exhale can be taken care Of
The carbonic acid gas exhaled is absorbed
by chemicals, by the way, and ther
weighed.
Then there is A. B. Spaulding, the foot
ball player, who is another one of the ad
vanced students doing interesting work il
the physiological department.. He il
8 studying the pineal gland-that lonl
mysterious part of the brain of man ant
!, all animals which comparative studio
Y have proved to be rudimentary third eye
e The pineal gland is the remains of an eyt
: in the back of the head which has Ions
been lost in the process of evolution. 1t i
e most nearly, en- eye in the lizard, and il
e the lizard is plainly shown what tn
q pineal gland was intended for. The full
e full-grown lizard shows a scaly sign of i
t on top of his head, but it is in the embry
g lizard that it is most nearly what it ono
8 was. Mr.. Spaulding is making long ant
: elaborate studies of the brains of embry