A STUDY OP FEVER. 41 



tion. I cannot allow, therefore, that the experiments of Hei- 

 denhain contradict, much less disprove, what I have previously- 

 asserted. 



His experiments on animals suffering from pyaeraic fever 

 have also differed from mine, in that he did not obtain any fall 

 of temperature. The explanation of this is probably to be 

 found in the fact that he employed very feeble currents. It • 

 may be that it is more difficult to depress the temperature of a 

 feverish than of a normal animal. "Upon this point I shall 

 speak more fully a little later in my lecture. 



A knowledge of the existence of an inhibitory chemical 

 centre throws a flood of light upon many hitherto inexplicable 

 puzzles in clinical medicine. 



Thus it has long been known that high bodily temperature 

 may coexist with any condition of the circulation; and so long 

 as it was believed that the rapidity of the production of animal 

 heat was directly dependent upon the activity of the blood- 

 current, the coexistence of high fever and of lessened arterial 

 action was a very strange phenomenon. 



Another class of cases completely cleared up by discovery 

 of inhibitory chemical nerves, is the so-called cerebral rheuma- 

 tism, an instance of which was detailed earlier in the evening. 

 The fever so universally present in acute rheumatism is proba- 

 bly, in most cases, a merely " irritative fever," essentially dif- 

 ferent, in the method of its production, from the high tempera- 

 ture of " cerebral rheumatism." It is caused by the articular 

 inflammation of the joints, precisely as it is in cases of simple, 

 non-specific, acute inflammation of joints, and in a manner 

 which shall be explained directly. 



The materies morhi of rheumatism, whatever its nature may 

 be, is seemingly whimsical in its choice of attack. One day it 

 is the wrist, the next the ankle, the next, perhaps, the pericar- 

 dium or the pleura, which receives the blow. We cannot tell 

 why any individual part is attacked or is spared in any indi- 



