50 WONDERS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 



Mr. (now sir B.) Brodie,* wherein respiration 

 ■was kept up by artificial means after the 

 animal — a rabbit — had been killed, the heat of 

 the body was found to diminish as rapidly as 

 in a dead animal of the same kind in which 

 no attempts were made to keep up the respira- 

 tion. Yet in the animal in which artificial 

 respiration was carried on, 'the heart continued 

 to beat for nearly two hours, the blood circu- 

 lated and was changed from arterial into 

 venous blood in the capillary vessels, it was 

 oxygenated in the lungs, and carbon was given 

 off equal in quantity to that which is evolved 

 in a natural state, and the oxygenated or 

 arterial blood had the usual florid colour. It 

 would appear that during the process of diges- 

 tion, that is, the process of converting food into 

 chyme, chyle, and blood, the system will vigo- 

 rously resist the influence of cold. But what 

 power of producing caloric can result from this 

 ill-understood process ? Ought we not rather 

 to look for the cause in the action of those 

 great nerves, especially the ganglia or functional 

 brains, (the semilunar and coeliac plexus,) under 

 whose agency the processes which conduce to 

 the maintenance of the living frame in its 

 organic integrity are continually carried on? 

 In bodies cooled almost to death by exposure 

 to cold, a bladder of hot water over the cardiac 

 region, that is, over what is commonly called 

 the " pit of the stomach," is very effective. 

 Now in this region the ganglia or functional 

 Phil. Trans. 1812, p. 378. 



