relative to Pneumatic Medicine. 263 
body loses gradually its natural heat, until it be reduced to 
the temperature of the surrounding medium. During this 
petiod, if we attempt to raise the heat to the natural stand- 
ard by warm pans of coals passedover the bed-clothes, or 
heated bottles or bricks applied to the legs and feet, we 
are not only disappointed in our expectations, but do an 
actual injury. Thus if a snake be taken from his autumnal 
hiding-place, and exposed to the sun’s rays, or in a warm 
room, he quickly shows signs of returning life, and even 
increased powers, but he will die from the experiment ; 
whereas another, gradually stimulated by heat, according 
to his state, will be restored to full animation. Thus by 
an ill-judged artificial and continued heat, many destroy 
the patient they had wished to save. But the lungs being 
supplied with air, the blood receives the oxygen gas (oxy- 
gen and caloric in is latent state) which is diffused, to be 
decomposed, through innumerable arteries and veins, from 
the centre to the extremities. Thus is the animal heat re- 
stored, and communicated throughout the system, and 
with more certainty than from any other mode. The most 
efficacious method therefore of imparting heat is, to excite 
the generating causes, by renewing respiration, and by 
placing the patient betwixt blankets, which it escapes as 
it becomes generated, flannel being a bad conductor of 
heat. To produce a quicker evolution of animal heat, an 
eighteen-gallon cask of oxygen gas was procured, and the 
air was taken out of the barrel by means of a common bel- 
lows, and forced into the lungs of the patient. 
Each time of this process there was an evident im- 
provement for the better. Our patient became less con- 
vulsed, and the countenance visibly lost. more and more of 
that ghastly lividness which was the most alarming sym- 
ptom. All the attendants noticed, each time, these very 
salutary changes. 
In order to relieve the head (for although the proximate 
cause of suspended animation is the pressure on the tra- 
chea, or wind-pipe, yet, as probably there is some turges- 
cence in the brain, owing to former pressure on the jugu- 
Jars), a dozen leeches were applied to the temples, but not 
R4 before 
