THE LAWS OF ORGANIC 



tention to state facts and not hypotheses, I shall leave 

 the reader to form his own judgment on this subject. 

 At ten o'clock at night the rabbit appeared as usual, and 

 was disposed to eat. At half-past seven o'clock next morn- 

 ing its breathing was laborious, and it refused to eat. The 

 temperature was 98. At this time it was killed. 



Dissection. On opening the chest the lungs collapsed, 

 arid were of a perfectly healthy appearance, and crepitarit 

 throughout. The contents of the stomach were homoge- 

 neous, and of a very soft consistence. In different parts 

 of the stomach undigested vegetable was evident ; but the 

 whole mass was as well digested as the pyloric portion of 

 the preceding, but scarcely equal to that of the following. 

 The contents of the large intestines were fluid ; but from 

 this circumstance no inference can be drawn, as the intes- 

 tines were in a state of high inflammation, and were agglu- 

 tinated in several situations. 



The trachea of this rabbit was divided, and the tube at- 

 tached as in the preceding ; about half an inch of the par 

 vagum, on each side, was cut out. Temperature of the 

 rabbit 104. At two o'clock the rabbit was breathing as 

 in the state of health. At ten o'clock the respiration had 

 become slightly laborious and hurried. Its temperature 

 was 982. It died in about seven minutes after I had as- 

 certained its temperature. The cause of its sudden death 

 I could not account for. It did not appear particularly op- 

 pressed before the introduction of the thermometer into 

 the rectum. The chest was immediately opened, and pre- 

 sented the following appearances. 



Dissection. The lungs collapsed on opening the chest ; 

 they were somewhat of a darker colour than natural, but 

 did not present any traces of inflammation, nor did we ob- 

 serve any dark patches ; they were of the usual size, and 



