Abstract
Since there is at present a premature trend toward the use of the vacuum tube high frequency generator in therapeutics, a study of certain extreme local heating effects in animals seems advisable. The following experiments were conducted in the hope of throwing some light on the exceedingly high temperatures generated in local tissues of which the general body temperature gives little or no warning.
When week old Albino rats were exposed to an electrostatic field obtained by an apparatus giving a frequency of 100,000,000 cycles per second, death was accompanied by a violent rush of blood to fore and hind limbs and tail. These appendages became severely congested and swollen, and so marked was this effect that it was believed possible to use the general macroscopic appearance as a basis for a comparative study of the effects of high frequency oscillations with external heat.
Christie and Loomis 1 in previous experiments with mice maintained that death occurred as a result of “pure” heat. They did not, however, give the amount of heat necessary to duplicate any given high frequency effect, but simply proved that mice were killed in an incubator whose temperature reading was identical with rectal readings of mice killed in the electrostatic field.
In the succeeding experiments, in order that the rush of blood to the limbs could be more readily observed, rats were selected before the hair coat developed, 7 days being the age of all experimental animals.
Those animals which were killed in an electrostatic field were exposed in an open glass tube between circular plates 9 cm. in diameter at 3 cm. separation. The generating circuit of the apparatus used included a 50 watt, A. C., tube and a transformer of 1100 volts secondary.
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