534 EVOLUTION OF HEAT, LIGHT, AND ELECTRICITY. 



are more speedily killed by extreme cold in summer than in winter; and it 

 seems probable, therefore, that we are partly to attribute the peculiar chilling 

 influence of a cold day in summer, and the oppressiveness of a warm day in 

 winter, to the seasonal change in the body itself; although the effect is doubt- 

 less referrible in part to the effect of contrast upon our own feelings. 1 



426. The usual Temperature of the body occasionally undergoes consider- 

 able alteration in disease ; and this in the way either of increase or of dimi- 

 nution. Thus in maladies which involve an acceleration of pulse and a 

 quickening of the respiration, the temperature is generally higher than usual, 

 even though a large portion of the lung may be unfit for its function. This 

 is often remarkably seen in the last stages of phthisis, when the inspirations 

 are extremely rapid, and the pulse so quick as scarcely to admit of being 

 counted ; the skin, in- such cases, often becomes almost painfully hot. On 

 the other hand, in diseases of the contrary character, such as " niorbus. coeru- 

 leus," asthma, and cholera, the temperature of the body falls; a reduction to 

 78 having been noticed in the former maladies, and to 67 in the latter. 

 The range observed by M. Andral in diseases which less affected the calori- 

 fying function, was from 95 to 107.6 ; and by M. Roger (loc. cit), in dis- 

 eases of children, from 74.3 to 108.5. Prof. Dunglisou 2 speaks of having 

 seen the thermometer at 106 in scarlatina and typhus ; and Dr. Frances 

 Home 3 found it to stand at 104 in two individuals in the cold stage of an 

 intermittent, whilst it afterwards fell to 101, and subsequently to 99, dur- 

 ing the sweating stage. Dr. Edwards mentions a case of tetanus, in which 

 the temperature of the body rose to 1101. The following observations have 

 been made on this subject by M. Donne ; 4 in a case of puerperal fever, the 

 pulse being 168, and the respirations 48 per minute, the temperature was 

 104; in a case of hypertrophy of the heart, the pulse being 150, and the 

 respirations 34, the temperature was 103 ; in a case of typhoid fever, the 

 pulse being 136, and the respirations 50, the temperature was 104 ; and in a 

 case of phthisis, the pulse being 140, and the respirations 62, the temperature 

 was 102; on the other hand, in a case of jaundice, in which the pulse was 

 but 52, the temperature was only 96.40 ; but the same temperature \vas ob- 

 served in a case of diabetes, in which the pulse was 84. These limited ob- 

 servations, whilst they clearly indicate that a general relation exists between 

 the temperature of the body and the rapidity of the pulse, also show that 

 this relation is by no means invariable, but that it is liable to be affected by 

 several causes, of which our knowledge is as yet very slight. Persistent 

 high temperature of the body (105-110) in febrile affections usually indi- 

 cates a fatal issue. The highest temperature yet observed has been reported 

 by Dr. J. Teale, of Scarborough, who in a case of injury to the spine from 

 a fall registered the remarkable temperature of 122 3 Fahr., the pulse being 



1 Many of the lower animals, as the Marmot and Dormouse, hibernate during the 

 winter, and their state has been very carefully examined by Valentin and by Hor- 

 vath (Centralblatt, 1872, pp. 70b', 7J1, and 7-i7). Horvath's experiments were con- 

 ducted on Marmots (Spermophilus citillus), which exist in large numbers in Russia. 

 In captivity he finds that during the winter they sleep for about four clays and then 

 wake lor four da}'s. During the sleeping period they can be cooled down to such a 

 degree that a thermometer introduced into the rectum to the depth of an inch and a 

 half indicated only 3 F. above the freezing-point. The temperature rose rapidly 

 after the animal awoke, so that in the course of an hour it was 3 F. higher, at the 

 close of the second hour 9 F. higher, and at the end of the next half hour about '_'7 

 F. The cause of this remarkable elevation of temperature is according to Horvath 

 scarcely explicable on the ordinary chemical theory of calorification, since neither 

 the re-pi ration nor the muscular movements were correspondingly augmented. 



2 Human 1'hvMology, 7th edit., vol ii, p. '2'2~>. 



1 Medical Facts ami Experiments, London, 1759. 

 4 Archiv. Gen. de Mod., October, 1835. 



