122 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 



Although the elevation of temperature to so 

 great an extent may not be a very frequent oc- 

 currence, cases must be in the recollection of every 

 physician and surgeon, in which, under certain 

 morbid conditions of the nervous system, the na- 

 tural temperature was fully maintained, at the 

 same time that the respiration was so slow and 

 imperfect as to indicate that the consumption of 

 oxygen in that process must have been greatly 

 diminished. The following observations, illus- 

 trative of this subject, are taken from John 

 Hunter's Lectures on the Principles of Surgery, 

 delivered in the year 1786-1787*, and they are 

 of so much interest, in connection with the pre- 

 sent inquiry, that I am tempted to extract the 

 whole passage. 



" It being discovered that the absolute heat of 

 bodies differs very much in different substances, 

 and perhaps in the same substances differently 

 combined, it was thought that this would ac- 

 count for the production, and continuation, of 

 animal heat. It is supposed that the air which 

 we inspire has much more absolute heat than 

 the same air has when we expire it, and that the 

 superabundant heat is given to the animal. But 

 this chemical method of accounting for heat will 

 not account for all the varieties in the heat of 

 animals at different times, especially in disease, 

 when the breathing does not equally vary, or 

 correspond with the heat of the animal. 



* Palmer's edition of the works of John Hunter, vol. i. 

 pp. 282, 283. 



