148 NATURE AND LIFE. 
which he has just published the results. This physiologist 
used a pine box, divided into two parts by a grating, on 
which the animal subjected to the experiment is placed. 
The box rests on a cast-iron plate, and the whole is ar- 
ranged on a furnace which warms the air of the apparatus 
more or less. A window, placed in the side of the box, 
allows the head of the animal to be fixed outside of it at 
will. Examining animals, subjected under these conditions 
to the influence of air more or less warm, Bernard verified 
the first observations of Berger and Delaroche, and made 
new and more important ones. Boerhaave had given as 
the cause of death the application of hot air to the lungs, 
preventing the cooling of the blood. Bernard showed by 
experiments that hot air, acting on the skin, creates a rise 
of temperature more rapidly fatal than when this fluid is 
merely introduced into the pulmonary vessels. He proved 
also that, when the hot air is damp, the phenomena take a 
more rapid course, and death occurs much more quickly 
and at a lower temperature, than in dry air. This difference 
must result from the fact that dampness promotes a rise in 
temperature. 
When an animal is subjected to the poisoning effects 
of heat, it presents a series of uniform and characteristic 
phenomena. It is at first a little disturbed, then panting, 
its movements of respiration and circulation accelerate, it 
grows slowly hotter through the circulation, which, carrying 
the blood continually from the surface to the centre, bears 
heat also along with it, then at a given moment it falls into- 
convulsions, the beating of its heart ceases, and it dies 
uttering a cry. By means of the thermometer it is noted 
that the temperature of the animal, in every case, is higher 
by four or five degrees (cent.) than the figure which repre- 
sents the normal warmth. Thus at first the animal is ex- 
cited, its functions seem to be performed with fresh vigor, 
very much as, in the first rays of April sunshine, the pul- 
