236 



to 100, or as IH to 10*. These results derive 

 confirmation from the experiments of Mr Coleman, 

 who, in order to discover the relative specific heat 

 of arterial and venal blood, \yhile yet retained in the 

 system, strangled a cat, and immediately opened its 

 chest, while the blood in the left ventricle was still 

 florid. He then introduced a thermometer, through 

 an opening in the pericardium on each side of the 

 heart, and it stood at 98 : in the left ventricle, the 

 temperature was only 97, and in the right ventricle 

 it was nearly 99. In fifteen minutes, however, in- 

 stead of the right ventricle possessing two degrees 

 of heat more than the left, it was found to have four 

 degrees less. Mr Astley Cooper repeated this ex- 

 periment in different ways, and found invariably, 

 that although the venal blood was superior in tern- 

 perature at first, yet before coagulation was com- 

 plete, the arterial became from three to six degrees 

 warmer t- These facts afford clear and decisive 

 proof, that the specific heat of the arterial blood ex- 

 ceeds that of the venal, and demonstrate, likewise, 

 that this excess is obtained during the passage of 

 that fluid through the lungs. 



192. Admitting the lungs, then, to be the organs 

 in which, by a decomposition of tne air, the blood, 

 as it passes through them, obtains its heat, it is next 

 required to shew the sufficiency of this decomposi- 

 tion, to supply heat enough for the maintenance of 

 that superiority of temperature, which the wanner 



* On Animal Heat, p. 279. 



| Coleman on Suspended Respiration, p. 42. et seq. 



