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EUGENE F. DU BOIS 



the celebrated Dutch physical chemist. For ordinary temperatures this 

 law can be expressed as follows : "With a rise in temperature of ten de- 

 grees centigrade the velocity of chemical reactions increases between two 

 and three times." In other words, the temperature coefficient is usually 

 between two and three. This means an increase of 30-60 per cent for the 

 three degrees rise from 37 to 40 C. Practically all of the fever experi- 

 ments are within these limits, and the average line shows a temperature 

 coefficient of 2.3. 



If we plot in the style used above all the various chemical reactions 



TEMP C' 



TEMP. COEFFICIENT 



90 100 110 120 130 140 

 RATE OF CHEMICAL REACTIONS 



150 160 170 



Fig. 17. The lines in this chart represent a number of typical chemical reactions 

 taken from Van't Hoff and Kanitz. The slant of the lines shows the increase in 

 the rate of the reactions as the temperature is raised. Note that the lines correspond 

 closely to those which represent the total oxidations in the human body. 



given by Van't Hoff and Kanitz (Fig. 17) we note that the lines have ap- 

 proximately the same slope found in fever. The patient responds to a 

 rise in temperature in a manner which closely resembles the chemical re- 

 actions in a water bath. There is, of course, a tremendous difference be- 

 tween the simple medium of the test tube solution and the complex medi- 

 um of the body fluids, but Kanitz has shown in his monograph that a large 

 number of biological processes follow Van't Hoff?s law. 



Metabolism in Lobar Pneumonia 



Lobar pneumonia differs from other fevers because there is a local 

 lesion with a considerable amount of exudate which is rapidly formed 

 and resolved. It is difficult to tell what proportion of the marked changes 



