The investigations concerning the role of central nervous structures in temperature
regulation may be considered as having proceeded during the last decade
along two converging conceptual lines which have originally emerged from
opposing points of view. One of these concepts which can be traced to the classical
discoveries of BARBOUR (1912) and of ISENSCHMID and KREHL (1912) had proposed
that the hypothalamus represents the only center of temperature regulation
existing within the central nervous system. Both the control of the thermoregulatory
effector activities and the perception of core temperature as the controlled
variable were exclusively ascribed to this particular section of the brain stem.
The second concept had been introduced in the discussion about the central
nervous functions in temperature regulation by THAUER (1939). It emphasized the
functional character of nervous control centers and proposed that the specific
thermoregulatory control functions, though governed by the hypothalamus, are
established in principle by structures widespread in the central nervous system.