HEAT AND LIFE. 139 



tropics to consume only very light food. The activity of 

 respiratory combustion and the kind of alimentation thus 

 vary with climate, so that there is always a certain propor- 

 tion maintained between the thermic state of the surround- 

 ing medium and that of the animal furnace. In like man- 

 ner, in the same climate, persons who perform great mechan- 

 ical labor must eat more than those who put forth but lit- 

 tle movement. This fact, long ago observed, has received 

 of late the clearest and surest demonstration. Yet, per- 

 haps, it is not kept sufficiently in view in the management of 

 public alimentation. Many examples prove the benefit 

 that industry would derive from increasing, in all possi- 

 ble ways, the amount of meat used in laborers' meals. 

 Quite recently, at a manufacturing establishment of the 

 Tarn, M. Talabot has improved the strength and sanitary 

 condition of his workmen by giving them meat in abun- 

 dance. Under the influence of a diet almost wholly vege- 

 table, each laborer lost on an average fifteen days' work a 

 year through fatigue or sickness. As soon as the use of 

 meat was adopted, the average loss for each man per year 

 was not over three days. Often enough, it must be owned, 

 alcohol is only the workman's means of remedying the 

 want of heat-producing elements in his food ; a deceitful 

 remedy, which buoys up the system for a time, only to sap 

 it afterward with alarming subtilty. One of the best pre- 

 ventives of the abuse of alcohol would certainly be the 

 lessening of the cost of meat. 



From the point of view of the relation between heat 

 and motion, the living being may thus be compared to an 

 inanimate motor, as a steam-engine. In both cases, heat 

 is engendered by combustion, and transformed into me- 

 chanical work by a system of organs more or less com- 

 plex. In both cases it is at first in a state of tension, 

 and yields motion in proportion as it is demanded for 

 the performance of certain work. Only, the living being 



