NOVUM ORGANUM 137 



them in horse dung, and heat is excited in lime by sprink 

 ling it with water (as has been before observed). 



4. In the vegetable world we know of no plant, nor part 

 of any plant (as the exudations or pith) that is warm to 

 man s touch. Yet (as we have before observed) green 

 weeds grow warm when confined, and some vegetables are 

 warm and others cold to our internal touch, i.e., the palate 

 and stomach, or even after a while to our external skin (as 

 is shown in plasters and ointments). 



5. We know of nothing in the various parts of animals, 

 when dead or detached from the rest, that is warm to the 

 touch ; for horse dung itself does not retain its heat, unless 

 it be confined and buried. All dung, however, appears to 

 possess a potential heat, as in manuring fields ; so also dead 

 bodies are endued with this latent and potential heat to such 

 a degree, that in cemeteries where people are interred daily 

 the earth acquires a secret heat, which consumes any 

 recently deposited body much sooner than pure earth; and 

 they tell you that the people of the East are acquainted with 

 a fine soft cloth, made of the down of birds, which can melt 

 butter wrapped gently up in it by its own warmth. 



6. Manures, such as every kind of dung, chalk, sea-sand, 

 salt and the like, have some disposition toward heat. 



7. All putrefaction exhibits some slight degree of heat, 

 though not enough to be perceptible by the touch; for 

 neither the substances which by putrefaction are converted 

 into animalcule, 25 as flesh and cheese, nor rotten wood 

 which shines in the dark, are warm to the touch. The heat, 



25 This was the ancient opinion, but the moderns incline to the belief that 

 these insects are produced by generation or fecundity from seeds deposited by 

 their tribes in bodies on the verge of putrefaction. Ed. 



