DECREASED HEAT ELIMINATION 615 



Reduction Power of the Tissues. That but little is to 

 be expected from attempts to estimate the reduction ca- 

 pacity of the tissues of febrile subjects by the decoloriza- 

 tion of methylene blue and similar methods, is indicated 

 from what has been above said in reference to the char- 

 acter of such processes. One author 16 observed in experi- 

 mentally-induced fever an increased, while another 17 ob- 

 served a reduced reduction power. The author is inclined to 

 look upon the whole subject as a rather unfortunate one, 

 which leads only to fictitious results, which cannot give any 

 information as to vital processes. 



Decreased Heat Elimination. Krehl and Soetbeer 18 

 found that in frogs which they had inoculated with patho- 

 genic microorganisms the production of heat increased with 

 the fever ; they hold ' ' that in animals in which the influence 

 of the nervous system upon heat production in muscle is 

 thoroughly excluded, a distinct rise in heat production takes 

 place from the influence of infection. ' ' We would of neces- 

 sity from this assume that at times in fever the production 

 of heat can be increased. Yet Krehl himself on the ground 

 of his extensive studies conducted in association with 

 Matthes, 19 arrived at the opinion that, no matter whether 

 the oxidations may or may not be raised in the body in 

 fever, the chief basis of temperature accession is not to be 

 found in an increased heat production but in a decreased 

 heat elimination. 



Modern experimental results therefore bring us to the 

 same conclusion to which Traube from his own celebrated 

 studies came, regarding the essential cause of fever as 

 referable not to the increased production of heat but to a 

 disturbance of heat elimination. He attributed fever to a 

 spasmodic constriction of peripheral vessels interfering 

 with the normal outlet of heat from the body surface. It 



in C. A. Herter, Amer. Jour, of Physiol., 12, 457, 1904. 



"V. Schlapfer, Zeitschr. f. exper. Pathol., 8, 181, 1911. 



18 L. Krehl and F. Soetbeer, Arch. f. exper. Pathol., 40, 275, 1897. 



L. Krehl and M. Matthes, Arch, f . exper. Pathol., 38, 284, 1897. 



