450 CENTRAL VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
impression being that this correlation of force is accomplished by 
the peripheral extremities of the nerves collecting, converting, and 
conveying the heat as nerve force to the brain, spinal marrow, and 
large ganglia of the nervous system, and by them again being 
distributed through other nerve fibres to the glands, muscles, and 
other organs of the body, manifesting itself in motion, secretion, 
and chemical action. 
“If I have so far made my meaning clear to you, and 
my conclusions be correct, it follows that you have the cause 
of the rise of temperature from disease; for if heat is constantly 
being produced, and only a portion of it consumed in keeping up 
the normal temperature of the body, the other portion being 
converted by the nerve filaments into nerve force, it also follows 
that any arrestation to the function of the nerves will produce an 
accumulation of heat and rise of temperature of the body. This 
is exactly what does take place; for instance, in a case of fever 
from deranged function of pneumogastric nerves, an enormously 
high temperature with loss of digestion and secretion in the 
alimentary canal and skin. On the other hand, tetanus, where 
there is morbid irritability of nerve filaments and excessive mus¬ 
cular action, the temperature remains normal; also in congestion 
or apoplexy of the lungs, though the surface of the body feels 
cold, we have an enormous increase of internal temperature; and, 
again, the diversion of a nerve will produce a rise of temperature. 
I could also instance the rapid reduction of normal heat after the 
subcutaneous use of the vegetable alkaloids, but that would 
trespass too much upon your time, and comes more under the head 
of the action of medicines, a subject I trust a scientific committee 
will some day be appointed to inquire into. The present object 
of this paper being to lead to a more careful investigation as to the 
rise and fall of animal heat and the control the nerves have over 
it, for it is generally admitted that derangement of temperature 
and disease are closely connected; and if the nerves control the 
temperature, so also may it be said that derangement of nerve 
function is the cause of all disease. In conclusion, I would add, 
that you must consider the variations of temperature, also the 
function of the nerves, and the effect produced by their derange¬ 
ment, before you can diagnose a disease, or with any certainty 
select the proper remedy for its treatment.” 
Mr. Hunting deemed the subject had been treated hypo¬ 
thetically ; the clotting of blood, he held, was due to the presence 
of a foreign body, and that animal heat depended on chemical 
changes in the body; that in tetanus and fever the temperature 
was high, yet it was attended with great loss of tissue. 
(Mr. Mavor had stated that in tetanus the temperature was 
not high.) 
