370 THE LAWS OF ORGANIC 



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" that the dead cooled sooner by two or three 

 minutes ; the living sunk the quicksilver to 58, 

 and the dead to 50." There is nothing extra- 

 ordinary in this result, but, on the contrary, it 

 is such as we should naturally expect. The 

 dead penis is to be considered as an inorganic 

 substance, deriving its heat entirely from the 

 medium in which it had previously been placed, 

 whereas the living one has its temperature con- 

 tinually renewed by the circulation of fresh portions 

 of Hood. The portion which is this moment 

 cooled is necessarily transmitted by the veins to 

 the heart, and arterial blood of the temperature 

 of the body flows hither, and this again is cool- 

 ed, and these series of interchanges unceasingly 

 operate with different degrees of facility and 

 perfection. When the living penis has been im- 

 mersed for some time in water as low as 50, the 

 blood-vessels are constricted, preventing the 

 transmission of the usual quantity of sanguine- 

 ous fluid, and as that which is acted upon re- 

 turns with difficulty, the living penis has its 

 temperature very much reduced. The dead 

 penis, deprived of the physical conditions of the 

 living, has its temperature speedily diminished, 

 and necessarily to a greater extent than the 

 other. 



CCCCXLVI. In the next experiment, the 

 living penis, having the temperature of 92, was 

 immersed for two minutes in water, heated to 



