326 ELEMENTS OF PHYSIOLOGY 



body usually has. So nature sets to work to create more 

 heat in the body and literally to burn up the poisons. If 

 the impurities are in one place, as in a joint or in the 

 throat, there arises local heat, called inflammation. If the 

 poisons are distributed in the body, a more general heat, 

 called a fever, may begin. 



Fever in itself is harmless and should not be combated 

 unless very high and of long duration, under which con- 

 ditions it may destroy the tissues. Fever is nature's method 

 of ridding the body of poisons which, if allowed to accumu- 

 late indefinitely, may produce death or permanent weak- 

 ness. One who has fever should avoid using strong 

 remedies to lower the temperature, unless the fire that 

 is burning up the rubbish threatens to destroy the house 

 also. While a fever is in progress, nature takes away 

 the appetite to prevent adding fuel to the flame; takes 

 away the inclination to move, as the exercise would be 

 carried on by combustion in the muscles ; gives great 

 thirst for cold water, which cools the body and dissolves 

 the poisons, and adds to the activity of the kidneys in ex- 

 creting the products of the combustion. In former days, 

 when nature was entirely distrusted, a patient burning 

 with fever was not allowed a drink of cold water, as it was 

 supposed it would kill him. (Read notes I and 2, page 



329.) 



595. If a grain of sand gets into the eye, nature first 

 causes pain to prevent winking the lid and injuring the eye, 

 and then produces tears which tend to wash out the sand. 



If a boy eats green apples, he has colic, which should 

 teach him to wait next time until they are ripe. He 

 has taken indigestible things into his stomach, and the 

 stomach, acting for his welfare, under the direction of the 

 nervous system, ejects the food. When a person habitually 

 partakes of things which are irritating to the stomach and 

 injurious to its delicate lining, nature creates mucus to 



