7 2 S CHEMISTR 1 ' OF RESPIRA TION. 
one-sixth of the normal amount, but that the output of carbon dioxide 
was raised to the normal, and death was prevented, when the tempera- 
ture of the surroundings was kept at 20°-25°. These observations were 
confirmed by Schiff. 
The explanation, however, of these experiments was given in 1868, 
when Laschkewitsch x showed by calorimetric observations that varnished 
animals gave off an abnormally large quantity of heat, that the cutaneous 
vessels were dilated and the vasomotor nerves appeared to be paralysed, 
that the temperature of the animal fell, and thus caused the character- 
istic symptoms and death. When only one limb of a rabbit was 
varnished, the temperature under the skin of that part was 34° - 5, as 
compared with 33°, that of the normal limb : after one hour, the first 
fell to 33° - 2, the second to 32 0- 5. Varnished animals wrapped up in 
cotton-wool remained well, and no bad effect was observed when the 
body of a normal rabbit was enclosed for six hours in a cylinder filled 
with hydrogen, the rabbit breathing through a mask over the nose and 
mouth. Laschkewitsch also pointed out that the greater the surface of 
the skin in relation to the mass of the body, the sooner death followed 
varnishing of the skin. This is shown in the experiments which Gerlach 
made upon rabbits and horses, the former dying in thirty hours, the 
latter after seven or eight days. The greater the surface in relation to 
the mass of the body, the greater is the rate of cooling. 
The experiment of varnishing the human body was first made, 
according to Laschkewitsch, by the officials of Pope Leo X.. who, 
wishing during the coronation ceremonies to make a child represent an 
angel, gilded the whole of its body ; the child, however, died before it 
had fulfilled its part in the ceremony. It is probable that in this 
case the gilding contained some poisonous substance. In 1877, Senator 2 
showed that the whole surface of the human body could be covered with 
an impermeable layer, and that even after remaining in this condition 
for eight or ten days, no disturbance whatever could be observed ; 
no marked change was observed in the temperature, and this explains 
the absence of the symptoms which are observed in animals. The 
human body has little natural covering and the most perfect power 
of regulating its temperature, conditions which do not obtain in most of 
the lower animals. 
Extensive but superficial burns of the skin often cause death, and this, 
according to some observers, is due to interference with the cutaneous respira- 
tion and to retention of waste products, which arc normally discharged by the 
sweat. There is, however, very little evidence in support of this view, and it 
is probable that the fatal result in these cases is due to the following factors — 
shock, changes in the plasma and corpuscles of the blood, 3 excessive loss of 
heat from the hypersemic skin, and disturbed regulation of temperature, owing 
to the absence of the normal sensory impulses from the skin. 
Respiration in the alimentary canal.— The quantity and nature of 
the gases found in the alimentary canal vary under different circum- 
1 Arch. f. Ancct., Physiol, u. wissensch. Med., 1868. S. 61. 
- Virchows Archiv, 1877, Bd. lxx. S. 182; Arch./. Physio/., Leipzig, 1894, S. 178. 
3 Max Schultze, Arch. f. mikr. Aunt., Bonn, 1865J Bd. i. S. 26 ; Wertheim, JFien. med. 
Presse, 1868, No. 13 ; Ponfiek, Berl. Min. Jl'chnsehr., 1877. No. 46 ; Ccvtralbl. f. d. med. 
Wissensch., Berlin, 1880, Nos. 11 and 16 : Lesser, Virchow's Archiv, 18S0, Bd. exxix. 
S. 248; Hoppe-Seyler, Ztschr. f. physiol. Chem., Strassbnrg, 1881, Bd. v., S. 1 and 344 ; 
Tappeiner, Centralbl.f. d. med. Wissensch,., Berlin, 1881, Bd. xix. S. 385 and 401. 
