48 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE. 



the chemical theories which have been offered 

 as " explanations " of the phenomena of fever 

 and inflammation ? In cases in which the 

 patient is dying of suffocation, when one lung 

 has ceased altogether to breathe and the other 

 is almost obstructed, we are told that, never- 

 theless, the fever depends upon increased oxi- 

 dation. If the temperature rises, as it does in 

 some cases many degrees, after death has oc- 

 curred, and continues to rise for some hours 

 after heart and lungs have ceased to act, we are 

 expected to assent to the dictum that the fact 

 is due to increased oxidation. But it is obvious 

 that rise in temperature in such cases is asso- 

 ciated with diminished, instead of increased, 

 access of oxygen, and the chemical theory of 

 animal heat can only be accepted if the most 

 important of the well established facts be ig- 

 nored. In the same way mechanics and che- 

 mistry utterly fail to explain the phenomena of 

 an ordinary cold, or a common headache. The 

 effects of a sting, or those following the bite 

 of a gnat, or a flea, no more can be accounted 

 for by physics or chemistry than those resulting 

 from the poison of the rattlesnake or cobra, or 

 from the introduction into the system of a few 



