ANIMAL HEAT, 111 



In the experiments which M. Le Gallois insti- 

 tuted with my apparatus, he employed very 

 young rabbits, much smaller than those which 

 had been employed by myself. Instead of 

 placing them under the influence of a narcotic 

 poison, or of decapitation, in some of them he 

 merely made a section of the spinal chord, imme- 

 diately below the cranium; while in others, be- 

 sides dividing the chord, he destroyed the tex- 

 ture of the brain, by introducing an instrument 

 into the cranium, through the great foramen of 

 the occiput. After having inflated the lungs for 

 30 minutes, he found that the carbonic acid 

 generated was, in the majority of instances, con- 

 siderably less than that which was generated by 

 the same animals breathing naturally ; and com- 

 paring these experiments with those which I had 

 made with the narcotised animals, he states that 

 the results of his experiments do not correspond 

 with those obtained by myself. I cannot, how- 

 ever, admit the justice of this comparison. I 

 attributed the smaller production of carbonic 

 acid in the first of my experiments to the loss of 

 blood consequent on the division of the spinal 

 chord and of the vessels and nerves in the neck. 

 We know that the section of the spinal chord below 

 the occiput is in itself sufficient to cause immedi- 

 ately a certain degree of haGmorrhage from the 

 muscles of the neck, and from the arteries, veins, 

 and sinuses within the theca vertebralis. But 

 where an instrument is introduced through the 

 foramen of the occiput, for the purpose of destroy- 



