AND ANIMAL LIFE. 49 



This experiment, although it differs in its 

 results from the preceding, yet does not mate- 

 rially, if at all, support the opinion of Mr BRODIE. 

 The rabbit whose head was removed, and whose 

 spinal cord was destroyed, lost 3i more than the 

 one in which these were entire. In Experiment 

 III. we have an example opposed to this ; but, 

 in the present one, the first of the three is only 

 | of a degree beneath the last, which suffered no 

 mutilation, nor even loss of blood,-? a circum- 

 stance that always takes place to a slight extent 

 in the removal of the head and destruction of 

 the spinal marrow. In opening the chests of 

 these rabbits, the heart of the first was found 

 contracting 70 times per minute, while that of the 

 second, in which the nervous system was whole, 

 gave scarcely a perceptible pulsation. 



Finding, from a variety of experiments, that it 

 was of little consequence to the evolution of 

 animal heat whether the nervous system were 

 destroyed or left entire, I thought it possible that 

 the results might be different if an animal were 

 killed by some powerful poison. To satisfy myself 

 on thislpoint,the two following experiments were 

 instituted. In the first, inflation was not employ- 

 ed ; one rabbit was killed by prussic acid, and the 

 other by a blow upon the occiput ; and, ther- 

 mometers having been introduced into the chest, 

 abdomen, and rectum of each, they were both 

 placed upon the table. The temperature of the 



