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Gr. A. BANHAM. 
of life, and is the principal cause of all manifestations of vital power 
from whatever source they are derived. The domestic animals 
and birds present a tolerable constant temperature in health, i. e., 
their warmth is not dependent upon the medium in which they 
live. In disease, however, we find more or less alteration, and as 
Claude Bernard lias proved, a disease may be fundamentally 
diagnosed by the mere deviations of the temperature from the nor¬ 
mal standard. When the natural warmth of the body exceeds a 
certain degree, death follows from the excessive combustion of the 
tissues, just the same as would be produced by external (artificial) 
heat. On the other hand, life is impossible if the temperature of 
the body is cooled below a certain point. Thus by artificially cool¬ 
ing an animal below 20° cel., the natural temperature cannot be 
restored, and therefore death ensues. 
Claude Bernard has also shown, that if animals are exposed to 
a high degree of heat, so that their internal temperature rises 4° 
to 5° above the normal point, they die. Biehardson gives us 5.5° to 
6.5° as the limit to which the internal temperature of warm blooded 
animals can be raised without causing death. 
It was observed as far back as the time of Hippocrates, that an 
increase in the temperature of the body was an important sign of 
acute disease. But it is self-evident that an exact measurement of 
the warmth of the body could only take place, after the discovery 
of the thermometer, for the method of ascertaining it by the 
hand, is very untrustworthy. 
The first observations with the thermometer are ascribed to a 
Venetian physician, named Sanctorius, (died 1638), and its value 
in disease was promoted by Boerhave, Van Swieten, and more 
especially by He Haen. In later times it was used by Hunter, 
Currie, Lavoisier, Dalton, and in the first half of this century by 
Chossat, Donne, Gavarret, Andral, Traulee, Mayer Helmholtz, 
De Costa, Baerensprung, and many others. 
In the vear 1852 Claud Bernard communicated to the Acade- 
miedes Sciences of France, the influence the division of the sym¬ 
pathetic nerve had on the generation of heat, and many investiga¬ 
tions were carried on in this field, and especially in Germany. 
Wunderlich’s work on “The Relation of the Temperature of the 
