292 HEAT AS A REMEDIAL AGENT IN DISEASE. 



specific temperature. As for instance, the temperature of the human race 

 is about 98.5°, while that of some birds is 109°, a temperature at which 

 human life is only carried on for a few hours. But in those organisms 

 where waste is so rapid repair is equally rapid, in other words, the organ- 

 ism is nicely adjusted to suit its own requirements. So that in a state of 

 health the normal temperature never varies to any great extent. It is true 

 the muscle during exertion manifests a marked rise of temperature, but as 

 soon as the exertion is over it again sinks to or below its normal tempera- 

 ture. This is what is known as the stage of exhaustion. But the tissues 

 of the body are not at once changed from well formed albumen, for exam- 

 ple, into completely prej)ared excreta that are ready to be eliminated by the 

 proper glands or structures, but they must go through a series of changes, 

 each new compound that is formed being more simjsle than the one that 

 precedes it, until finally it either passes out of the organism as a gas or 

 some solid that is completely and perfectly soluble in water, and all those 

 changes must be effected by the aid of heat, though they themselves are 

 productive of heat. But we saw that the changes in the nitrogen com- 

 pounds produced succeeding changes in the hydro-carbons, which being 

 slow in taking on molecular change keeps it up, so that heat started in the 

 nitrogen compounds is kept up or sustained and prolonged by the hydro- 

 carbons. 



We have stated that in order to a complete accomplishment of this jDro- 

 cess there must be a constant and equal heat. But if from any cause the 

 initial stage of transformation is accomplished and too great an amount of 

 heat is drawn off or lost, or there is not communicated to the hydro car- 

 bons the stimulating force to produce necessary change in them, there sec- 

 ondary transformations do not take place, and we find the circulation loaded 

 with partially or imperfectly transformed substances, which now become 

 poisons to the assimilative process. "Nature, now, in order to get rid of them 

 has, as we say, to make an extra effort to cast them off, but in reality, those 

 poisons produce their own cure. They, by their presence acting as irritants. 

 set up an increased disassimilating process, which means an increased heat, 

 hence we have fever. jSTow while nature is, by this increase of heat, putting 

 those partially transformed materials that were floating in the blood in a 

 proper form for excretion, she is burning up or disintegrating more healthy 

 tissue, and the cause of the first stoppage or imperfect transformation of tis- 

 sue not having been removed there is still the same necessity for increased 

 heat to effect the the transformation process, all of which means greatly in- 

 creased waste of tissue, and consequently of force. But this expenditure of 

 force was not normal either from cause or for effect, for if it had been normal 

 from cause it would have been done at the mandate of the will or in the or- 

 dinary performance of vital processes, and if for effect it is entirely out of 

 its range of action. Hence, one of its physical manifestations is impair- 

 ment of the intellect, or delirium, or in other words, an abnormal expendi- 

 ture of force on and through nerve tissues. In thus following the biologi- 



