ACTION OF COLD APPLICATIONS. 
207 
to bring forward practical results of such treatment as 
herein advocated from personal observation, although he 
hopes soon to be in a position to do so, but a somewhat ex¬ 
tensive hospital experience in this treatment of human beings 
first called his attention to the advantages that might accrue 
from the adoption of these measures in veterinary practice. 
If by thus attracting notice to this subject sufficient interest 
in the matter is exciting to induce practitioners to test the 
efficacy of cold applications in febrile disorders, this attempt 
on paper will be amply rewarded. 
Other methods of using cold, as by cold draughts, 
clystser, ice-bags, etc., have not been touched upon for lack 
of time, but they are none the less valuable adjuvants. 
A word in closing as to the advisability of lowering bodily 
temperature in fever. Increased temperature, although the 
most prominent symptom in fever, is oftentimes not the most 
dangerous element. Witness the tremendous progressive 
tendency towards a fatal termination in many septic disor¬ 
ders where the system seemed to be utterly overwhelmed 
by the profound impression made upon the whole organism 
by the effect of the poison, whatever it may be. It seems to 
be generally accepted that the nervous system is the funda¬ 
mental factor concerned in the loss of co-ordination of the 
heat regulatory centres, whereby the heat formation is in¬ 
creased, and heat dissipation diminished, in this manner 
producing the group of symptoms we recognize as fever. 
The exciting cause may depend upon bacterial origin, 
which again in its turn gives rise to ptomaines, combining in 
this manner the chemical and zymotic theories of causation 
into one, or it may be due to halmic alteration, traumatism 
or other source of nervous irritation. It appears that height¬ 
ened temperature and the increased oxidation and resultant 
decomposition in the body occasioned by fever, are inimical 
to the etiological factors that cause fever. It is even asserted 
that in intermittent fever the non-febrile period merely affords 
an interregnum in which the pugilistic bacteria can reinforce 
themselves for the febrile attack, and, partially succumbing to 
the increased body heat which they themselves occasion in 
the course of the onslaught, are forced to retire until they 
