on Animal Heat. 
6o$ 
a child just born 98.5; after twelve hours 99, and after three 
days, the same ; during the whole of which time it appeared 
in perfect health. On five other children of the same age, 
similar observations were made. In two instances of weak 
infants, the temperature, one hour after birth, was found not 
to exceed 96, which is two degrees below the standard heat 
of man in a state of health ; but their respiration was still lan- 
guid, and the next day the heat of the axilla had risen in one 
to 98.5, and in the other to 99.* 
To conclude, as in each hypothesis examined, difficulties 
are found to exist from facts or the results of experiments of 
an unbending nature, we must at present either suspend theory 
altogether and search for experimenta crucis, or adopt that 
hypothesis whicli is conformable to the greater number of facts. 
The first measure is certainly most philosophical ; but to the 
latter we are naturally most inclined, and if I were questioned 
which view is preferable, I should make no hesitation in se- 
lecting Dr. Black's, which to me appears both most simple 
and most satisfactory. 
* The opinion of Haller, I am well aware, is contrary to these results, as is 
expressed in the following paragraph : ** Viri feminis calidiores duriori nempe sunt 
fabrica, contra pueri aliquanto minus calent quam adulti homines, ut modo natus 
puer vix calorem conservet, nisi sollicite et copiose vestibus textis.” — Elem. Phys. 
ii. p. 297. As this great physiologist seems to have drawn his interence merely from 
the circumstances mentioned, it can have little force, except from the authority of the 
author; to which may be opposed an equal authority, not less than tha of Hippo- 
crates himself: he says, in his fourteenth aphorism, “ Qu« crescunt plurimum 
“ habent calidi innati : senibus autem paucus calor.” 
