The Physiology of Large Reptiles with Special Reference to the Heat Production of Snakes, Tortoises, Lizards and Alligators.

Abstract

After an account of the methods of study and the results obtained, there follows a discussion of a "comparison of metabolism of cold-blooded animals with that of warm-blooded animals, cell temperature of which has been lowered below 37° to approximately that of cold-blooded animals" (p. 417). The monograph concludes with this statement: "If our research serves no more than to point out to students in comparative physiology some of the intermediary phases that may occur between the lowest of the cold blooded organisms and the highest of the warm blooded organisms (man) it has been worth while." The results of this painstaking and at times dangerous research can be said to be of use or interest only to special (laboratory) students of metabolism.