SECT. II. PHYSIOLOGY. 9 
cally. Few physiologists were able to resist its 
chemical plausibility; and with the exception of 
Mr. Hunter, it was almost universally credited in 
the United Kingdom, and publicly taught in the 
universities. 
vil. The truth or fallacy of this theory may be 
considered in two points of view: did Dr. Craw- 
ford deduce his conclusions from accurate 
premises? and doth it explain the numerous 
remarkable morbid variations of temperature in 
nervous and inflammatory diseases? <A sufficient 
body of facts, accumulated within these last twelve 
years, warrants an answer in the negative to 
both questions. 
vit. Respecting the capacity of carbonic acid 
for caloric, Dr. Crawford fell into a grievous error. 
The latest experiments on the capacity of gases 
for caloric, are those of Berard, Delaroche, and 
Mollet, which seem to have been executed with 
great exactness. Taking the capacity of atmo- 
spheric air for caloric at 1.0000, they make that of 
earbonie acid 1.2583, while Crawford estimates 
it at 1.0454, atmospheric air being 1.7900. Con- 
cerning the difference of venous and _ arterial 
blood, Dr. Crawford was wrong likewise in his 
statement, though not as widely as in the gases. 
From a number of experiments on this subject, 
published in the Philosophical Transactions of 
1814, Dr. Davy has shown, that “there is no 
B 
