6o 2 Dr, Davy’s Account of some Experiments 
against this hypothesis are to be derived from the recent ex- 
periments of Mr. Brodie, and those of M. M. Delaroche 
and Berard. 
Dr. Black’s hypothesis appears to me far more satisfactory 
than Dr. Crawford’s, and capable of explaining a much 
greater number of phenomena; but there are objections even 
to this hypothesis which must be removed, before it can with 
propriety be received. 
The last hypothesis, which I mentioned, that which refers 
animal heat to vital action, has many facts in its support, and 
especially the results of Mr. Brodie’s curious and interesting 
experiments; and the results of my inquiry, as I have already 
observed, are not incompatible with it. It may be said, that the 
viscera of the thorax and abdomen are of highest temperature, 
because these parts are, as it were, the elaboratories of life ; and 
that the heat of the arterial blood, and of the parts best sup- 
plied with this fluid, is greatest, because they lie deepest and 
abound most in the principle of life or vital action. This ex- 
planation was suggested to me by my brother Sir H. Davy. 
There are some facts which I have observed agreeable to it, 
but not more so than to the hypothesis of Dr. Black. I have 
found the stomach of the ox, the pyloric compartment, of a 
higher temperature than the left ventricle itself ; thus when 
the latter immediately after death was 103, the former full of 
food was 104.5. I have also found the temperature of young 
animals, in whom all the vital actions are most energetic, 
higher than that of animals arrived at maturity. I may men- 
tion here, in illustration of this statement, a few observations 
made on infants, as I am not acquainted with any yet pub- 
lished. In one instance I found the heat under the axilla of 
