EXTRACT XLV. 



ON BODY TEMPERATURE. 



THE normal temperature of the human body is now 

 generally understood to be 98*4 Fahr., and any consider- 

 able or continued departure from that standard is to be 

 looked upon as the outcome of some pathological con- 

 dition of one or another part, or of the whole, of the 

 bodily structures. The regular maintenance of this 

 degree of temperature must, therefore, be looked upon as 

 due to the balanced action or operation of the various 

 forces and forms of energy belonging to that body, in 

 its equipoised physiological condition, on the materials, 

 solid, liquid, and gaseous, which find an entrance into 

 it, plus what is due to the voluntary exercise of any or all 

 of the organs and structures under the control of the will. 



Thus physiologico-chemical changes, comprising those 

 of composition and decomposition, and the synthetic and 

 analytic metabolic activities, with the expenditure of nerve 

 and muscle energy and its attendant molecular disturb- 

 ances, besides what, over and above these, remains of the 

 now vanishing " vital work " of the economy generally, 

 make up the series of heat producing and supporting 

 agencies, which go to maintain a temperature of 98-4 F. 



So long as the contributions of caloric from these various 

 sources are neither more nor less than the physiological 

 standard necessitates, the natural degree of 98*4 must 

 be the result. So soon, however, as these from any cause 

 or causes become disturbed or uncertain, the tempera- 

 ture suffers a rise or fall, as the case may be, with a 

 consequent lapse into a pathological condition, which 



