Medicine: Hot Times

At El Centro in California's Imperial Valley the temperature last week rose to 122° F. Stepping out of doors was like walking into a blast furnace's draft. Snakes and lizards, whose muscles stiffen with rigor caloris at 104°, died. But insects, which can function at 147°, and animals, with a system of maintaining body temperatures at normal regardless of climate, pursued their ordinary activities, as did the men, women and children of El Centro. Women dressed in organdie; men went without coats. Everyone wore hats to prevent sunstroke. But of heat stroke there was no fear. For the air at El Centro is exceedingly dry. It instantly absorbs perspiration and with perspiration the heat of any man's exertion. Only complaints were from tourists, not properly dressed for quick evaporation of body moisture.

Virtually the same condition occurred last week at Quanah, Tex. (110°); Phoenix, Ariz. (116°); Hays, Kans. (117°); Belleville, Kans. (119°); Emporia, Kans. (112°). Over a vast area including Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas the daytime temperature did not fall below 100°.

As long as a man can easily keep his internal body temperature at 98.6° he is comfortable. In illness he can develop a "low" temperature of 102° and suffer no appreciable harm. A prolonged ''high'' temperature of 105° is usually fatal. External temperature of 104° produces heat strokes if the individual's heat control system fails to operate efficiently. American Radiator Co., which has gone into temperature control scientifically, finds that a normal human being in good health can stand 157° with 15% humidity up to 45 minutes. Thereafter the man becomes irritable, restless and drowsy.