434 NUTRITION. 



than an hour to a steam-bath of from 110 to 116 ; and a 

 much greater elevation of temperature, in dry air, can be 

 tolerated with impunity. We have alluded to some of the ob- 

 servations on the temperatures that could be borne without 

 bad results, in connection with the question of variations in 

 the heat of the body. In the experiments of Delaroche and 

 Berger, the temperature was considerably under 200. 1 Tillet 

 recorded an instance of a young girl who remained in an oven 

 for ten minutes without inconvenience, at a temperature of 

 130 Reaumur, or 324*5 Fahr. 2 Dr. Blagden, in his noted 

 experiments in a heated room, made in connection with 

 Drs. Banks, Solander, Fordyce, and others, found in one 

 series of observations, that a temperature of 211 could be 

 easily borne ; and at another time, the heat was raised to 

 260. 3 Chabert, who exhibited in this country and in 

 Europe under the name of the " fire-king," is said to have 

 entered ovens at from 400 to 600 . 4 Under these extraor- 

 dinary temperatures, the body is protected from the radiated 

 heat by clothing, the air is perfectly dry, and the animal 

 heat is kept down by excessive exhalation from the surface. 

 It is a curious fact, that after exposure of the body to an 

 intense dry heat or to a heated vapor, as in the Turkish and 

 Russian baths, when the general temperature is somewhat 

 raised and the surface is bathed in perspiration, a cold 

 plunge, which checks the action of the skin almost imme- 

 diately, is not injurious, and is rather agreeable. This pre- 

 sents a striking contrast to the effects of sudden cold upon 

 a system, heated and exhausted by long-continued exertion. 

 In the latter instance, when the perspiration is suddenly 

 checked, serious disorders of nutrition, inflammations, etc., 



1 See page 397. 



2 TILLET, Memoire sur les degres extraordinaires de chaleur auxquelles les 

 hommes et les animaux sont capables de resister. Histoire de Vacademie rot/ale des 

 sconces, annee, 1764, Paris, 1767, p. 188. 



3 BLAGDEN, Experiments and Observations in an heated Room. Philosophical 

 Transactions, London, 1775, pp. 196, 484. 



4 DUNGLISON, Human Physiology, Philadelphia, 1856, vol. i., p. 598. 



