836 EXPERIMENTS OF NATURE ON 



the free state, causing an elevation of tempera- 

 ture, or local fever, which disappears as soon as 

 a free circulation of blood is restored through the 

 part by warm fomentations, poultices, &c. 



But the experiments of Hunter are annually 

 performed by nature on a grand scale, and in a 

 far more instructive manner, in the middle and 

 higher latitudes, where the whole vegetable world, 

 and all the lower orders of animals, including, as 

 we have seen, many species that are warm 

 blooded, are reduced to a state of suspended ani- 

 mation, for months during winter, but rise to 

 newness of life when " The flowers begin to ap- 

 pear on the earth, the time for the singing of 

 birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard 

 in the land." 



Will it be said that a frozen animal is not dead, 

 but retains a small remainder of vitality in a la- 

 tent state ? Where then is the evidence of this, 

 when respiration, circulation, secretion, nutri- 

 tion, and absorption, are suspended, and every 

 sign of irritability extinguished ? However this 

 may be, it is not true that when the functions of 

 life are once completely suspended, they cannot 

 be again restored, as maintained by modern Phy- 

 siologists. On the contrary, it is absolutely cer- 

 tain, that the lower species of animals may be, 

 and have remained, in a frozen state for weeks 

 and months, with the aptitude to live, but without 

 life. It is stated by Isaac Walton, on the autho- 



