232 



air, she was as brisk and lively as ever, and appa- 

 rently not in the least injured by the heat.- That the 

 heat of these rooms, was truly indicated by the ther- 

 mometer, was proved by the effects produced on 

 inanimate matter ; for an egg, placed on a tin plate, 

 was, in twenty minutes, roasted quite hard : in 

 thirty-three minutes, a beef-steak was roasted dry, 

 and when the heated air was directed in a stream 

 through a bellows, it was roasted in about thir- 

 teen minutes *. On the other hand, the human 

 body, and that of other animals, will bear great de- 

 grees of cold, without any actual diminution of its 

 ordinary standard heat ; and thus the temperature 

 of man is the same nearly in winter as in summer 

 in an inhabitant of the frigid as in one of the torrid 

 zone. 



188. Since, then, in every climate, the human 

 body, and that of the superior animals, support a 

 standard temperature, which varies but little under 

 every vicissitude of heat and cold, consistent with 

 the due performance of the animal functions, there 

 must exist in man, and in other animals, appropriate 

 organs by which this temperature can be at all 

 times sustained : but no living powers of the animal 

 system appear to be sufficient for this purpose, in- 

 dependent of the concurring aid of external agents. 

 No supposed attrition between the contiguous soft 

 parts of the animal ; no friction between the vessels 

 and the globules of the blood ; no action of the solid 

 parts upon one another ; no circumstances arising 



* Philosophical Transactions, loc. cit. 



