OF ANIMAL HEAT. Ill 



of the latent heat which it had received : in this way is 

 our animal heat principally produced.* 



1G8. Its production and regulation, however, appear 

 much influenced by the secretion of fluids from the 

 blood, both those which are liquid and destined to 

 solidify by assimilation and nutrition, and those which 

 are permanently elastic. 



1G9. Since those changes are effected by the energy 

 sof the vital powers, the great influence of these upon 

 our temperature must be easily perceived, f 



170. Many arguments render it probable, that the 

 action of the minute vessels, and the conversion of 

 oxygenised into carbonised blood, are dependent 

 upon the varied excitement or depression of the vital 

 principle. 



For the remarkable phenomena of the stability of 

 our temperature,! (proved by the thermometer, and not 

 by the sense of touch, which may be fallacious}— that 



* Hence the constant coldness of those wretched beings who labour under 

 the Hue disease, which arises from a mal-confonnation of the heart. Some- 

 times the septa of the heart are imperfect, sometimes the aorta arises with the 

 pulmonary artery from the right ventricle, as in the tortoise. In such instances, 

 the chemical changes can take place in the lnng3 but imperfectly. Among 

 innumerable instances of this lamentable disease, suffice it to quote J. Aber- 

 nethy, Surgical and Physiological Essays. P. ii. p. 158, and Fr. Ticdemann, 

 Zoologic. T. i. p. 177. 



f I have formerly treated of the influence of the nervous system upon animal 

 heat, in my Specimen Physiologies Comparator inter animantia calidi Sffrigidi 

 sanguinis, p. 23. 



Sec the same confirmed by many arguments in Magn. Strom's Theoria iA- 

 flammationis doetrina: de calore Animali superstrucla. Havn. 1795. 8vo. 

 p. 30 sq. and by the much lamented Roose, Journal der Erfindungen, &c 

 T. v. p. 17. 



Consult also Dupnytrcn, Analyse des Travau.v de I' Institute 1807. p. 16. 



J See Crawford, Philes. Trans, vol. Ixxi, p. ii. 



