Delicate Instruments, Powerful Microscopes and Costly Equipment Are in University Laboratories

A cross-section view of the Physiology and Zoology departments shows a formidable array of costly technical instruments and special materials. The Physiology department maintains an animal colony at an annual expense of $1,600 not including the general expense of proper ventilation. Careful experimentation, for instance, is now being made on the behavior of rats and mice when exposed to unusual conditions, such as being placed on a sloping surface. Inheritance in animals is another subject of experiment now. A pure breed of rats has been bred generation after generation by mating brother with sister; but for the most accurate results, animals must be kept in good health and subjected to uniform temperature and diet, which requires constant care and attention. Instruments which will allow for the variation of living organisms when under observation are absolutely essential and a special shop is maintained to the laboratories to build the simpler instruments.

The Zoology department has recently bought for about $450 a machine which enables the worker to dissect living organisms so small they must be viewed through a microscope. Fine glass needles are so arranged in the instrument that a coarse movement of the hand lever registers only the slightest motion in the needles. The worker can actually touch the nerves of tiny cells with his instrument and watch the muscular reaction.

A new centrifuge, arranged with a microscope to make the action visible within cost $500, but opens a new field to the research worker. A moving picture camera, to register the growth of plant life, which takes from 16 pictures a second to one picture every four minutes and 16 seconds cost about $550 but is indispensable to the laboratories.

One research worker who is attempting to establish the amount of friction between surfaces has required special machines costing $300.