SANGUIFICATION. 631 



tained at a uniform standard,* much less the 

 admirable provision of nature by which just so 

 much carbon and hydrogen are given off in the 

 lungs, and just so much nitrogen absorbed, as are 

 requisite for the formation of blood. 



But that the caloric obtained from the atmos- 

 phere by respiration, is the organizing principle 

 by which blood is formed, would appear from all 

 the analogies of nature. In the first place, if it 

 be true, that solar caloric is the cause of organ- 

 ization and growth throughout the vegetable 

 world, animal heat must perform the same office 

 in the higher grades of existence. As the abun- 

 dance, diversity, and richness of vegetation, de- 

 pend on the mean temperature of climates, 

 so will it be seen from the following table, con- 

 structed from the analyses of Prevost and Dumas, 

 Denis, Le Canu, Berzelius, and Marshall, that 

 the ratio of solid organic matter in the blood of 

 different animals, is in proportion to the quantity 

 of their respiration and mean healthy temperature, 

 ceteris paribus, being greater in birds than in 



* By the discovery of such a method, including the combus- 

 tion of all that valuable fuel which now passes off in the form of 

 smoke, four-fifths of the capital now wasted in the creation of ar- 

 tificial warmth would be saved. And could we devise a method 

 of conveying caloric through our dwellings, in a mode resembling 

 that by which it is diffused through every part of the body from 

 the lungs, in combination with arterial blood, the saving would be 

 still further increased, an equable temperature maintained, and 

 many of the diseases tehat afflict the human race prevented. 



T T 



