THE INFLUENCE OF COLD 
158 
what others have done in other divisions of medical science, and 
what light the one may throw upon the other. 
Dr. Edwards has devoted many years to an inquiry into the 
“ influence of physical agents on life/’ and we have in the vo¬ 
lume before us the result, the truly valuable result, of his 
researches. We shall be enabled to trace in it many an un¬ 
suspected cause of disease, and avail ourselves of many an un¬ 
suspected means for the recovery of health. We shall likewise 
be able to bring somewhat to the test various popular doctrines 
as to the agency of heat, and cold, and respiration, on the frame 
of the quadruped ; possibly we may obtain an indistinct notion, 
to be more successfully followed up by others, of the sources and 
the preventive, if not the cure, of some of the sad destroyers of 
quadruped life, the murrain in cattle, the rot in sheep, the dis¬ 
temper in the dog—all plainly referrible to the “ influence of 
physical agents.” 
It is, perhaps, to be lamented that Dr. Edwards’s experiments 
had not stricter reference to pathology, although he has applied 
many of them to this end and aim of medical study. A mere 
spirit of curiosity seems to have dictated some of them ; but the 
reader will derive ample instruction from the perusal of this work, 
and he will be pleased with the valuable applications” which 
are often made, but not often enough. He considers the in¬ 
fluence of air and moisture and temperature on the cutaneous 
and pulmonary respiration, and on the perspiration and absorp¬ 
tion of the Batrachian reptiles, and on fishes and reptiles. This 
occupies the first and second parts. The third and fourth parts 
are devoted to warm-blooded animals and man : to these the pre¬ 
sent review, or rather analysis, will be confined. 
The observations on the beat of young annuals will appear new 
to many physiologists, who imagined that, because the circu¬ 
lation is more rapid and the nutritive function more active in 
young animals, their temperature was more elevated than that of 
adults.” 
By means of a thermometer placed under the axilla, and the 
bulb applied so as to be on all sides in contact with the animal, 
I ascertained the temperature of some new-born puppies, whilst 
in the act of sucking; and found it to be nearly equal to that of 
the mother, or about a degree or two lower: but as this dif¬ 
ference is not constant, and is observable among adults also, it 
maybe altogether disregarded. We are, therefore,warranted in 
concluding, that the temperature of the new-born animal, when 
placed near its mother, is not superior to that of adults. But 
if, at the temperature between 10° and 20° cent, or 50° and 68° 
Fahr., a new-born puppy be removed and kept an hour or two 
