AND ANIMAL LIFE, 91 



sickly rabbits, for the purpose of ascertaining the 

 variations of temperature from the state of health ; 

 but among the great number which I have exa- 

 mined, in which some were strong, and others 

 weakly, I have seldom found a difference beyond 

 5 or 6 ; but if this diminution of temperature 

 produces such marked results, can we expect a 

 rabbit to digest its food when constrained and 

 tortured by the experimenter, with laborious and 

 irregular breathing, and a loss of 15 or 20 of 

 animal heat ? If this fact can be established, the 

 secretion of gastric juice is regulated by a partial 

 or individual law a law which is independent 

 of those great principles of the system, and of 

 every modification which these suffer from inter- 

 nal or external general causes. 



The last inference and experiment which I 

 shall at present notice, are the following " That 

 dividing the spinal marrow does not derange the 

 secreting power." To prove this, the spinal mar- 

 row was divided about the middle. " The rab- 

 bit seemed lively after the operation, and conti- 

 nued to eat frequently till within six hours of its 

 death. It died in twenty-seven hours and a half 

 after the division of the spinal marrow. It had 

 not vomited, and had little or no dyspnoea"* In 

 this experiment the digestive power was little, 

 if at all, affected ; and this is just what we should 

 anticipate from the symptoms which he describes, 



* Dr WILSON PHILIP on the Vital Functions, p. 180. 



