54 



excited in the cooled animal, after the beginning of asphyxia, it 

 dies sooner than when it remains in rest. 



From the facts and reasonings which are related in this note 

 I draw the following conclusions : 



1st. The temperature of newly-born warm-blooded animals 

 has a great influence on the duration of their life when they are 

 asphyxiated. 



2d. There are very considerable differences in the duration of 

 life in asphyxiated animals of different species, even when the 

 experiment is performed in the same medium, and while their 

 temperature is at the same degree. 



3. The degree of the temperature of adult warm-blooded ani- 

 mals has also a great influence on the duration of their life when 

 they are asphyxiated. 



4th. The influence of the animation of the temperature of a 

 warm-blooded animal on the duration of its life in asphyxia, 

 explains the persistence of life in man, in cases of cholera, 

 scleroma, and of some other diseases, when respiration is much 

 diminished. 



XVIII ON THE CENTRAL SEAT OF GENERAL AND OP TACTILE 



SENSIBILITY, AND ON THE VALUE OF CRIES AS MANIFESTA- 

 TIONS OF PAIN.* 



To determine where is the seat of perception and of volition is 

 one of the greatest physiological questions. Flourens maintains 

 that this seat is in the central lobes. Many physiologists, among 

 whom are Bouillaud, Gerdy and Longet, have published papers 

 against the doctrine of Flourens. Their only important argu- 

 ment is that mammals deprived of their whole encephalon, ex- 

 cept the medulla oblongata and the pons varolii, continue to 

 possess the faculty of perceiving sensations, and that the percep- 

 tion of pain is then manifested by cries and agitation. When 

 the encephalon, says Longet,f is so much mutilated, in rabbits 

 and dogs, that only the pons varolii and the medulla ob- 

 longata remain, in the cranial cavity, these animals, although 

 they seem to be in a deep coma, are still able to agitate them- 

 selves, and to cry plaintively, under the influence of strong 

 external irritations ; but if a sufficiently deep alteration is made 



* See Compfes Rendus de 1'Acad. des Sciences, 1849. t. xxix. p. 672. 

 f Traite de Physiol. Paris. 1850. t. ii, B. p. 38. 



