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UNIVERSITY OF LOUVAIN
lecture-room are 4.50 meters high; and those of the first floor are 4.10 meters, while those of the second floor measure 4.40 meters.
The lecture-room (Fig. 6) is 14 meters wide, 13.50 meters deep, and 7 meters high, having seats for 226 students, but by adding small portable stools, 300 students can be seated easily. The seats are arranged in the form of a theater and the inclination is such that everyone can observe what is happening on the demonstration table and can see the blackboard.
The demonstration table is placed on a platform 34 centimeters high. The wall behind the table has a blackboard 4 meters long. On both sides of the blackboard are fixed wall demonstration apparatus for pictures; the apparatus consists of a curtain made of three linen strings supporting horizontal strips of wood for attaching the pictures. The pictures can be suspended in this way at different heights. Between the demonstration table and the first row of seats is sufficient place to give demonstrations of animals, apparatus, etc. By opening a section of the top of the table we have at our disposal different electrical currents: battery, 120 volts; continuous current, 220 volts; alternating current, 125 and 250 volts.
In the middle of the theater, partly hidden in the bleachers, is reserved a small room for projection purposes. In this room on one side is placed a Zeiss apparatus for microscopical projection, on the other side a Leitz epidiascope. A movable screen for projection has been hung before the projection apparatus so that it can receive both projections, being placed against the wall for the projection of slides or at a nearer distance for epidiascopical use. The screen which is of linen fixed in an iron frame, is suspended by means of rolls on a pendent bridge balanced by counterweights. The bridge can move around two axes, fixed in the middle of the arms of the bridge and reposing on two supports attached to the ceiling and the wall. One axis of the bridge has a cog-wheel, provided with a chain, which passes by another in contact with a horizontal one which reverses the direction. The axis of the horizontal cog-wheel has been prolonged and can be moved by a handle at its lower end.
The place beneath the theater is partly utilized as a storeroom for pictures used in connection with the teaching. Further on there remains sufficient place for a long room, which can be employed as a large dark room. Two corridors and the projecting room lead to this place. In these corridors are placed in recesses the heating radiators which receive the outdoor air directly penetrating through ventilating openings behind. The heated air goes through the theater to leave it as vitiated air by ventilating openings near the ceiling. A regular ventilating current is obtained in this way.
The light enters the lecture-room by six windows, three on each side. The curtains for each side are
fixed on the same axis; the darkening is accomplished electrically. The acoustical conditions of the theater are excellent and may be considered as the application of certain rational theoretical principles of acoustics. Those excellent conditions are obtained by stabilizing the walls and the ceiling without charging them too much. The walls are very thick and on the outside stabilized by large supports. The ceiling is a rather thin plate of reinforced concrete receiving sufficient strength through different beams of the same material. There are two large principal beams, of a trapezoid form, one meter high and one meter wide on the upper surface, and further transversal beams, one meter wide and 0.40 meter high, at a right angle to the large beams. The space between the beams is filled up with coke and sand, and covered above with a tiled floor. In this way we have obtained a ceiling which is very strong without marked elastic traction which is liable to produce resonance.
The spectatorium (Fig. 7), or demonstration room, 12 meters wide and 8 meters deep, lighted in front and partly on both sides, is situated between the lecture-room and the laboratory for practical work of students, so that it forms a real part of both. During the lecture the illustrating experiment can be prepared so that at the same time or at the end of the lecture a demonstration can be given. This room can be darkened for special purposes. The spectatorium also renders great service as a part of the room for practical student work, not only by increasing the available space, but especially by offering occasion to demonstrate more complicated experiments for the students during their practical work.
In the middle of the room is placed an operating table. The top of the table has a copper plate supporting the animal and heated by electric lamps. There is further a large Palmer kymograph, and a respiration pump with electromotor (pattern Hans Meyer, made by Rinck). Air under pressure is always at our disposal to make “insufflation” according to Meitzer.
Two large tables of a special form, serving normally as work tables, can be transformed in a very simple way into theaters to allow a great number of students to observe the demonstration of operations on animals. The tables have not four but six legs fixed solidly in a wooden base. The top of the table, like that of a folding table, is composed of two parts forming wings, which can be turned up around an axis supported by the central legs. The two anterior legs have on the outside at a distance of 45 centimeters from the floor a movable shelf, turning round an axis. This can be used as a seat for a row of six students. Between the anterior and the central legs another row of six persons finds place by standing. At a distance of 40 centimeters from the base is fixed a platform between the central and the posterior legs. On this platform there is room