The Massachusetts spy, and Worcester County advertiser. [volume] ([Worcester, Mass.]) 1825-1831, 1831-02-16

The FUNCTIONS OF ANIMAL LIFE A
SOURCE OF HEAT. 1t is one of the remark
able facts of nature, that living animal bod
les, and to certain degree living vegetables
also, have the property of maintaining in
themselves peculiar temperature, wheth-
er surrounded by bodies that are hotter or
colder than they. Captain Parry's sailors,
during the polar winter, whGle they were
breathing air that would freeze mercury,
still had the natural warmth in them of SO
deg. of Fahrenheit; and the inhabitants Of
India, where the same thermometer stands
sometimes at lis deg. in the shade, have
their blood at no higher a temperature.
1t was at one time the favorlte explanation
of this, that animal heat was produced in
the lungs, during respiration from the oxy-
gen then admitted. The oxygen combines
with carbon from the BLOOD and becomes
carbonic acid as in combustion, and it was
supposed to give out portion of its latent
! heat, as in actual combustion; which heat
! being then spread over the body by the cir
cnating blood, maintained the temperature.
We now know, shat if such process assist
which it probably docs,-for the animal heat
has generally relation to the quantity of
oxygen expended in any particular case,
and when an animal being already much
heated needs no increase, very little oxygen
disappears much of the effect is de-
pendent on the influence of the nerves, eth
er directly or indirectly, through the vital
functions governed by them. Mr. Brodie,
in his important experiments upon the sub
l]ect, found that although in animals appar-
emily dead from injury done to the nervous
system, he could artificially continue tbs ae-
ton of respiration, with the usual formation
of carbonic acid, still the temperature fell
very quickly. The maintenance of low
temperature in an animal immersed in an
air hotter than itself, is partly attributable
to the copious perspiration and evaporation
which then take place, and which absorb
f into the latent from the excess of heat then
existing. Precipitation, both from the skin
and internal surface of the lungs, occurs,
generally in proportion to the excess of heat
Dogs and other animals, when much heated
as they cannot throw off or diminish their
natural covering, increase the evaporatine
surface by protruding a long humid tongue.
The power in animals of preserving their
, peculiar temperature has its limits. Intense
cold coming suddenly upon man who has
9 not sufficient protection, first causes SEN
4 sation of pain, and then brings on an al
. moSlHEeSlstlDle SleeplneSS,WhlCn II lHuulSou
3 in would be fatal. Sir Joseph Banks hav-
!, inc gone on shore one day near the cold
; Cape Horn, and being fatigued, was SO
overcome BY the feeling mentioned, that he
entreated his companions to let him sleep
for a little while. His prayer granted, might
have allowed that sleep 70 come upon him
which ends not-the sleep of death as, un-
der similar circumstances, it came upon &C
|. many thousands of the army which Bona
Sparte led into Russia, and lost there during
THE disastrous retreat through he SHOWS
Bonaparte's celebrated bulletin allowed
4, that in one night, when the thermometer o
: Reaumur stood at 19 deg. below zero, 80,
9 900 horses died. Cold in inferior degrees
and longer continued, acting on persons i'm