1040 INFLUENCE OF THE CHILL ON THE PULSE, 



the healthy average, as in the worst cases of 

 epidemic cholera, in which respiration is so far 

 diminished that reaction seldom takes place 

 unless by the timely employment of the warm 

 bath, or the application of dry heat. 



But as it is a law of nature that the force and 

 frequency of the heart's action, ceteris paribus, 

 are always in proportion to the temperature of 

 the blood, they are diminished during the cold 

 stage, as shewn by the slow and feeble or irregu- 

 lar state of the pulse ; which is attended with 

 shuddering and a spasmodic condition of the 

 whole body. Moreover, as the blood is formed 

 and renovated in the lungs by respiration, it 

 follows that whenever this important function is 

 diminished, the vital properties of the blood must 

 be impaired, no less certainly than by the chemi- 

 cal influence of the narcotic and other poisons. 

 For example, when the function of the lungs is 

 wholly arrested, as in cases of drowning, hang- 

 ing, or confinement in the mephitic gases, all the 

 arterial blood in the body of a healthy man is 

 changed to the venous state, and its power of 

 carrying on the operations of life destroyed in 

 about ninety seconds ; the reason of which is, 

 that it is no longer renovated by giving off carbon 

 and hydrogen, nor by receiving its accustomed 

 supply of vital heat. And as the temperature of 

 the body is reduced below the natural standard, 

 during the cold stage of fever, the blood is not 



