HEAT AND LIFE. 143 



Chasset, showed the first day a warmth of 38 4' (cent.) ; 

 two days before its death, 38 1' ; the evening before, 37 

 5' ; and at the moment of death, 27. By placing it in a 

 warm medium the moment it was about to die, the appar- 

 ent activity of its functions was restored for a little while ; 

 but the renewal is of brief duration : the anatomical ele- 

 ments have absolutely lost their spring. 



The hand of an invalid suffering from inflammation of 

 the chest, or from an attack of fever, is burning; that of one 

 affected by serious asthma, or by emphysema, is as cold to 

 the touch as marble. This is because animal heat varies 

 greatly in different pathological states. Sometimes it rises, 

 sometimes it falls ; and the morbid influence is scarcely ever 

 compatible with the body's degree of normal temperature. 

 In Hippocrates's time, when examination of the pulse was 

 not yet practised, the increase of temperature was the only 

 element in the commonest of maladies, fever. Galen de- 

 fines it quite simply as an extraordinary heat (color prceter- 

 naturalis substantia febrium). The ancients did not err. 

 It has been admitted and proved in our days that the eleva- 

 tion of the animal heat is just the specific character of the 

 febrile condition. On the one hand, there is never any 

 fever when the temperature continues at the normal de- 

 gree ; on the other, the rapidity of the pulse may reach the 

 utmost limits, without any febrile movement, as is seen in 

 hysteria. Whenever the bodily heat exceeds 38 (cent.), 

 it may be affirmed that there is fever ; and, whenever it 

 falls below 36, there is what is termed algidity. So that 

 the normal heat varies within the narrow range of scarcely 

 two degrees. Beyond these limits, that is, above 38 and 

 below 36, the temperature points out some morbid trouble. 

 In common intermittent fever, it rises two or three hours 

 before the chill, reaches a maximum at the close of it, and 

 then falls. Acute and decided inflammations, such as pneu- 

 monia, pleurisy, bronchitis, erysipelas, etc., are marked by 



