the action of Cold on Animals. 119 



considering the low temperature, and the northern exposure of 

 the place where they were, that it was the cold alone which 

 had produced these pulmonary inflammations. 



This violent effect of cold upon young birds recalled to me 

 what I had observed some years before in several animals sub- 

 jected to different experiments. v'ifu>r?n'^!f'vb55oif 



These animals operated upon duting the fine season, but 

 completely cured of their wounds, though weakened, almost 

 all died of chronic pulmonary inflammations during the first 

 cold weather that followed. 



The approximation of these effects of cold upon different 

 animals, its action so determinate and so constant upon the re- 

 spiratory organ, the different degrees of chronic or acute in- 

 flammation which were produced under my own eyes, made 

 me feel that I had at last in my hands a direct method of in-^ 

 vestigating pulmonary consumption, one of the most cruel ma- 

 ladies which afflict humanity- avi-vH*^ '^nn-t o'-^ofif 5 



I was at first desirous of determining if, in certain given 

 cases, cold alone was sufficient to determine pulmonary phthisis 

 I was then anxious to know, if in those same cases it was suf- 

 ficient to avoid cold in order to avoid this disease ; and finally, 

 I was anxious to see if this malady, begun under the influence 

 of a cold temperature, could not be cured by the sole effect of 

 a mild temperature. 



It cannot be expected that I should here give an account of 

 all the experiments which I made on these three points ; but 

 in order to give an idea of the manner in which they were pur- 

 sued, and of the results to which they led, I shall briefly re- 

 late the circumstances of one of them. 



In the beginning of October 1826, I procured a brood of 

 twenty-three chickens about a month old. When the first 

 cold weather came on, I put six of them in a place in which 

 I kept up a mild and regular temperature. None of these 

 six were affected with pulmonary consumption. 



Of the eleven chickens which I left exposed in the stable- 

 yard to the variations of the atmospherical temperature, all 

 except two died of pulmonary phthisis, after having passed 

 through all the stages of debility and consumption, and the 

 two surviving ones always remained small and weak. 



