The pulse of a healthy person, rising in the morn* 

 ing, beats 65 in a minute; but ai'trr the fatigue of the 

 day, it will in the evening beat eighty in that time ; 

 and again, by the night's rest or slf*ep, it will become 

 less frequent, till in the morning you will find it re- 

 turn to sixty-five. For the voluntary motions of the 

 muscles, and actions of the external a d internal senses, 

 urge the venal blood on to the heart, which, being 

 thereby oftener stimulated, makes more frequent con- 

 tractions. This is the cause of those paroxysms or 

 fits of increase observable in all fevers towards the 

 evening; for sleep not only retards the motion of the 

 blood, but of all the other humours and actions in the 

 body, 



It is one of the curious observations of Dr. Hales, 

 that the pulse is quicker in small animals. He found 

 the pulse of a horse slower by half than in a man, 

 viz. 3 C Z only in a minute ; whereas, in a dog, the pulse 

 beat 97 in that time. And this we see is conform- 

 able to the blood's heat, measured by the mercurial 

 thermometer of Fajrenheit's scale ; for the blood in 

 oxen, horses, and other large animals at rest, being 

 five or six degrees cooler than in us, will not rise to 

 our heat but by labour ; whereas dogs r cats, and 

 fowls, are five or six degrees hotter than we, (viz, 

 about 102 ;) and the latter, when sitting or brooding 

 on their egg? for young, are still four or five degrees 

 hotter, viz. 107 or 108, which is commonly the heat 

 of our blood in the fit of an ague ; where it is ob- 

 servable, that during the greatest sense of cold chill, 

 the blood is three or four degrees hotter than in health, 

 after which it gains four or five degrees more in the 

 height of the hot fit, viz. 104 or 105 degrees ; but in 

 ardent fevers, where the pulse beats 140, the heat of 

 blood will still be four or five degrees higher, viz. 110. 

 i.e. two or three degrees more than equal to a brooding 

 hen. 



The pulse is more quick in children, and becomes 

 slower in persons as they grow older. The salient 

 point of an ovum beats 134 in a minute. New born 



