AND ANIMAL LIFE. 37 



this as invariably is proportionate to an excited 

 state of the respiration and circulation. 



XLVII. In the various diseases of the thorax 

 and abdomen, characterised by congestion or 

 sluggishness of action, we have an opposite train 

 of symptoms : the blood is not of a highly florid 

 aspect, nor does it exhibit the buffy coat ; the 

 surface of the body is cold, collapsed, pale, or 

 discoloured, and every internal function is affect- 

 ed by a diminution of its regular action, and at 

 this time the animal temperature is much less 

 than natural ; proving, as evidently as the re- 

 lation between cause and effect can possibly do, 

 that the lungs are the organs which influence the 

 properties of the blood and the evolution of ani- 

 mal heat. 



XLVIII. If further proofs were required, we 

 might allude to the temperature of different 

 animals, which is high or low according to the 

 amplitude of the respiratory functions : but this 

 is a subject so often discussed, and so well esta* 

 blished, that it requires little attention here. 



XLIX. The nervous system lias no influence 

 whatever upon the generation of animal heat, except 

 in diminishing or retarding those chemical changes 

 on which it depends, by destroying the natural pro- 

 portions of blood submitted to the action of the air. 



The experiments and views of Mr BRODIE 

 are those generally alluded to, to prove that ani- 

 mal temperature is rather the result of nervous 

 influence than of chemical changes. The re- 



