1036 BRIGHT, ADDISON, AND TWEDIE. 



In a recent work on the Practice of Medicine, 

 by Bright and Addison, the authors maintain 

 that tjje primary seat of fever is the ganglionic 

 system of nerves. Yet they observe, that " as we 

 are ignorant of the nature and operation by which 

 heat is evolved during health, we cannot offer 

 any satisfactory explanation of the cause of its 

 increase in fever and inflammation, unless indeed 

 we may suppose it to depend upon the more in- 

 creased activity of the circulation, which is mani- 

 festly present in the recent form of the disease." 

 (p. 123.) And Dr. Tweedie repeats, " we know 

 so little about the cause of the generation of 

 animal heat, that no satisfactory explanation of 

 its increase or diminution has been given." (Cy- 

 clop, of Pract. Medicine, Part viii. p. 158.) 



But I have already proved in the foregoing 

 chapters of this work, that all the remote or pre- 

 disposing and exciting causes of disease tend to 

 reduce the temperature of the body ; that respi- 

 ration is diminished by exposure to the high tem- 

 perature of hot climates and seasons, impure air, 

 imperfect nourishment, the depressing passions, 

 intense study, intemperance in the use of spirits, 

 narcotic and other poisons, loss of blood, or ex- 

 cessive evacuations of any kind, concussion of 

 the brain, compound fractures, or whatever tends 

 to lessen the voluntary command of the nervous 

 system over the chemical function of the lungs, 

 that when the vital heat of the body is abstracted 



