CLASS I, 2. 2. 1. OF IRRITATION. 



ORDO II. 



Decreased Irritation, 



GENUS II. 

 Decreased Action of the Secerning System. 



THESE are always attended with decrease of partial, or of 

 general heat; for as the heat of animal bodies is the consequence 

 of their various secretions, and is perpetually passing away into 

 the ambient air, or other bodies in contact with them; when these 

 secretions become diminished, or cease, the heat of the part or of 

 the whole is soon diminished, or ceases along with them. 



SPECIES. 



1. Frigus febrile. Febrile coldness. There is reason to be- 

 lieve, that the beginning of many fever-fits originates in the quies- 

 cence of some part of the absorbent system, especially where they 

 have been owing to external cold; but that, where the coldness of 

 the body is not owing to a diminution of external heat, it arises 

 from the inaction of some part of the secerning system. Hence 

 some parts of the body are hot whilst other parts are cold; which 

 I suppose gave occasion to error in Martyn's Experiments; where 

 he says, that the body is as hot in the cold paroxysms of fevers 

 as at other times. 



After the sensorial power has been much diminished by great 

 preceding activity of the system, as by long continued external 

 heat, or violent exercise, a sudden exposure to much cold pro- 

 duces a torpor both greater in degree and over a greater portion 

 of the system, by subtracting their accustomed stimulus from 

 parts already much deprived of their irritability. Dr. Franklin 

 in a letter to M. Duberge, the French translator of his works, 

 mentions an instance of four young men, who bathed in a cold 

 spring after a day's harvest work; of whom two died on the 

 spot, a third on the next morning, and the other survived with 

 difficulty. Hence it would appear, that those, who have to 

 travel in intensely cold weather, will sooner perish, who have 

 previously heated themselves much with draras, than those who 

 have only the stimulus of natural food; of which I have heard 

 one well attested instance. See Article VII. 2. 3. Class HI. 

 2. 1. 17. 



Frigus chronicum. Permanent coldness. Coldness of the ex- 



