189 



and besides, fishes and frogs have been known to live and retain their 

 temperature in mineral waters, nearly of a boiling heat*. 



I thought it right to repeat these experiments, and with this view, I 

 placed living frogs in a vessel containing water at fifty degrees of tempe- 

 rature; and on taking them out, at the end of ten minutes, I ascertained 

 that they were not so hot as the liquid, nor as pieces of flesh which had 

 been put into it at the same time. 



We cannot admit the opinion of Grimaud, that living bodies have the 

 power of producing cold ; for, as cold is merely the absence of heat, one 

 cannot allow a positive existence to a negative being. 



Habit has a remarkable influence on the faculty which the body pos- 

 sesses, of bearing a degree of heat, much exceeding that which is natural 

 to it. Cooks handle burning coals with impunity; workmen employed 

 in forges, leave the mark of their feet on the burning and liquid metal, 

 at the moment when it becomes solid by cooling. Many, no doubt, re- 

 collect the too famous instance of a Spaniard, who became so general a 

 subject of conversation in Paris: this young man, in making his way 

 through a house on fire, perceived that the heat was less inconvenient to 

 him than he had imagined. He applied himself to bear with impunity, 

 the action of fire, and was enabled to apply to his tongue a spatula heated 

 red hot, and to apply the soles of his feet and the palms- of his hands on 

 a red hot iron, or on the surface of boiling oil. Nothing can equal the 

 absurdity and the exaggeration of the stories that were told of this man, 

 except the ignorance and the want of veracity of those who invented them. 

 The following is a correct statement of the feats of this man, who was 

 represented as incombustible and insensible. He passes rapidly along 

 the surface of his tongue, which is covered with saliva, a red hot spatula, 

 the action of which seems merely to dry it by bringing on an evaporation 

 of the "fluids with which it is covered. After carrying the spatula from 

 the base to the tip of his tongue, he brings it back again into his mouth, 

 and applies it to his palate, to which it communicates a part of its heat, 

 at the same time that it becomes moistened with saliva. This man, 

 having, in a public exhibition, carried on too long, the application of the 

 spatula, the caustic effects of its heat showed themselves, the epidermis 

 was detached, and found coiled, like the outer covering of an onion, in 

 the cloth which he used to wipe his mouth. He does not dip his hands 

 and feet in boiling oil, he merely applies to the surface of the fluid his 

 palms and his soles; and he repeats this frequently with only a short in- 

 terval between each application. When the experiment is carried on, for 

 a certain length of time, there is emitted a smell of burnt horn. No one 

 has yet observed, that though this man's hands are not callous, the palms 

 of these, and the soles of his feet are cushioned with fat. A thick layer 

 of fat, which is a bad conductor of heat, separates the skin from the sub- 

 jacent aponeuroses and nerves: this circumstance, to a certain degree, 

 account^ for his imperfect sensibility. 



His ulse during those experiments, was about a hundred and twenty; 

 the perspiration evidently increased, and sometimes copious. Every part 



\Vhen fever is present, we have suppression of perspiration and increase of tempera- 

 ture. We therefore think it superfluous to look for more causes than are sufficient to 

 produce the effect, to say nothing of drawing inferences from changes produced on 

 dead matter, explanatory of the actions which take place in living bodies. Got&nan. 

 * See Sonnerat's Voyage to the East Indies. 



