> 
RELATION OF TEMPERATURE, ETC. 37 
7. ON THE RELATION OF THE TEMPERATURE OF Page 126. 
THE AIR TO THAT OF THE BODY.* 
Tue nature of the evidence affecting theories in biological science is 
generally so far from direct, that it is only by the systematic working 
out of many of the necessary deductions that any idea can be formed 
A as to their value. The experiments detailed in this communication 
: were suggested by the theory to be referred to immediately, and their 
close agreement with its requirements tends strongly to substantiate 
its accuracy. 
In a paper published elsewheret I have detailed several observa- 
tions which tend to show that many of the minor fluctuations in the 
temperature of the human body result from alterations in the amount 
of blood exposed at its surface to the influence of external absorbing 
and conducting media. Others have repeated these experimentsf{, and 
obtained the same results. 
For example; on stripping the healthy body in an air of about 
50° F., a rise of the internal temperature (judged by that of the floor 
of the mouth) commences immediately, and in about half an hour 
amounts to as much as three-fourths of a degree. According to the 
above-mentioned theory this phenomenon is explained thus; the con- 
tact.of the cold air against the surface of the skin, previously main- 
_ tained at a much higher temperature by the clothes covering it, pro- 
duces so considerable a contraction of the cutaneous muscular vessels, 
and the blood is driven so far inwards, that the conducting power of 
the thus modified skin is rendered considerably less than that of the 
clothes and blood-filled skin combined, in the previous condition; 
consequently the body temperature rises until a higher equilibrium is 
attained. 
Such being the case, and the contraction of the cutaneous vessels 
being evidently caused by the cold, it is more than probable that the 
amount of this contraction should depend on the degree of cold ap- 
plied, that is, on the temperature of the external air in which the 
observation is being conducted; and the extent of this action would Page 127. 
manifest itself by its effect on the body temperature, less cutaneous 
contraction causing less diminished conduction and consequently less 
rise of temperature on stripping. 
Se re 
* “ Journal of Anatomy and Physiology,” VI. pp. 126-30. Noy. 1871. 
‘ “ Proceedings of the Royal Society,” No. 112, 1869, p. 419, e¢ seg. (Suprd, 
p. 6. 
t J. F. Goodhart, “ Guy’s Hospital Reports,” 1869. 
