876 SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY. 



phthisis, in pyaemia, and other diseases, temperatures of 104, 106, 

 and 108J, have been noted, and in tetanus of HOf , i. e., nearly 

 10 higher than the normal standard. On the other hand, in asthma 

 and in cyanosis, or the so-called blue disease, in which, owing to a 

 communication between the right and left auricles of the heart, the 

 blood is imperfectly oxygenated in the lungs, the temperature of the 

 body is unnaturally low ; this is also the case in syncope, apparent 

 death, and cholera, in which last disease, the blood becomes so thick- 

 ened as scarcely to circulate. In the stage of collapse in cholera, the 

 temperature of the surface of the body may be, according to different 

 authorities, as low as from 80 to 67, i. e., from 15 to 28 below the 

 ordinary temperature of the exposed skin. The sensation of heat, or 

 the opposite one of cold, experienced by a person in disease, does not 

 always correspond with the actual temperature of the body ; for in the 

 cold stage of ague, though the feeling of cold is extreme, the tem- 

 perature of the body may be actually raised (p. 374). On the ap- 

 proach of death, generally, with a feebler pulse and respiratory action, 

 combined frequently with the evaporation of profuse perspiration, 

 the temperature is gradually lowered : first, in the hands and feet, 

 then in the forehead, ears, and nose, and afterwards in the parts nearer 

 to the centre of the body. It has been observed, not only in cholera, 

 in which the temperature of the body is lowered from the disease 

 during life, but also in yellow fever, in which the body is hotter than 

 natural, that the temperature after death undergoes an actual elevation ; 

 this is probably to be accounted for, by the conduction of heat from 

 the central parts, together with the cessation of the cooling influence 

 of the evaporation of the cutaneous exhalation. 



After death the cooling process goes on in accordance with the 

 physical laws which regulate the temperature of inorganic moist 

 bodies, the rate at which this cooling takes place depending chiefly on 

 the external temperature and relative motion of the air, on the degree 

 of exposure of the body, its condition of emaciation or obesity, fat 

 being a bad conductor, and on the conducting power of the clothes, 

 or other objects in immediate contact with the corpse. 



^Effects of Cold on the Human Body. 



The power possessed by the human body of maintaining its proper 

 temperature, independently of external conditions, is limited within 

 certain ranges ; conditions of cold or heat are met with which not only 

 produce great inconvenience, but which, in the absence of special pro- 

 tection, may exercise a fatal influence. It has been shown experi- 

 mentally, that, when a Mammalian animal has lost about 20 to 21, 

 or about Jth of its normal heat, it suffers so greatly that a further 

 loss of heat is fatal to it, death ensuing from debility or congelation. 

 On the other hand, an addition to the temperature of the body of a 

 Mammiferous animal of about 13, is equally serious, constituting a 

 limit beyond which death speedily occurs. Hence, in Mammalia gen- 

 erally, an artificial elevation of the temperature of the body is sooner 

 fatal than an artificial lowering of that temperature. The same is prob- 



