Herald of the times. [volume] (Newport, R.I.) 1830-1846, 1835-03-26
From the Peoples Magazine.
HEAT OF TIE HUMAN BODY.

[From the Peoples Magazine.
HEAT OF TIE HUMAN BODY.
The power of the human system to gene
-manufacture-heat is wonderful. Or
rather, perhaps, we ought to say, would be
wonderful, if people ever thought of it.
During the extreme cold weather, in the
early part Of last month, one morning, the
mercury in the thermometer, in some parts of
New England, is said to have sunk to 3S de-
gress below zero, or 20 below the freezing
point. Yet intense as this cold was, a man
who was healthy and vigorous, and well clad,
could withstand it. Multitudes were con-
stantly travelling i'll various ways, on foot, on
horseback, and in carriages ;-and yet very
few were frozen.
We should also remember that it is not
merely the fact that we do not freeze, which
is to be wondered at. The heat of the hu-
man body is at all times, whether the wealth
er is cold or hot, about the same, viz: about
96 or 9S degrees. The body Of a traveller,
during the cold morning, we have just men,
toned, was about at this temperature
throughout, except just at the surface, or at
some of the extremites. Put the bulb of a
thermometer in your mouth, or grasp it in
your hand, or plunge it, if it were possible,
into your flesh, and the mercury will rise to
about 96 degrecs-no matter how cold the
weather is.
Thus we see that while the air is cooled
down to 3S degrees below zero, the human
body, if we are in health, keeps up to heat
Of 96; that is 1:4 degrees above the temper
ature of the atmosphere.
This is a most surprising fact. How does
the body maintain this state? In other words
why does it not cool down, just as body,
would, which has no life in it? Why do we
not freeze? We have already answered this
question, indirectly, in our first paragraph, by
intimating that the living body has power to
generate heat. How this heat is generated,
is another question. 1t is a question, more
over, which nobody can fully answer. The
anatomist and psychologist may partly ac-
count for the phenomenon, but not wholly
The Great Creator understands the matter of
course but He has not yet permitted men
to understand it.
On this subject, the following article, from
the Juvenile Rambler though written for
children, may not be uninteresting to adults:
"Some of our readers do not yet quite un-
derstand what is meant, when we say that
the human body has power, within itself, to
generate or make heat. We will try to make
it palmer.
"Did you never 60 to your rest, on a cold
Winters night without having your bed
warmed? We trust you always do, unless
you are sick. Well did not the bed very
soon become warm? Now how does this
happen? Either the bed icarmed ITSELF or
you ,oarmed 1t. Can you doubt which was
the fact?
"Then you warmed the bed, your body
must have given out, or parted with heat
For were you not just as warm, after your
body had heated the bed, as before? Now if
your body had parted with some of its heat,
why should it not be cooler for it? A piece
Of wood or stone, or even the body of a dead
man, heated to % degrees, the common heat
Of healthy person, would indeed, warm the
bed little, but would itself grew cool, in the
same proportion and if no more was done,
that, and the bed too, would in a little time,
become exactly as cold as they were at first
"Your body, on the contrary, would not
only warm the bed, but keep it warm all
night, and as long as you should lie in it
] am, supposing, by the way, that there are
clothes enough on it, to confne or keep in
the heat for if there are not, it will escape
too fast through the clothing into the room,
and you will feel cold and the bed will not
be very warm either.
"Clothes, then, you will see, by the way,
cannot really Udrm people, for they have no
power to do it. They only confne or entan-
gle the heat Of the body, and prevent its cs-
cape rapidly for after all, it does escape
slowly, both through the bed clothes, and
the clothes we wear; and this is the reason
why number of persons in a close room,
whether sitting up or sleeping, make the
room warmer.
"A healthy grown person, would probably
warm thoroughly, well covered bed, in a
cold room, by laying in it Is minutes, Ifa
person should try to ascertain how many
beds he could warm in this way, in 12 hours,
he would at Is minutes each, find the num-
Der to be 4S. Think, then, what an i'm
mense amount Of warmth or heart, must be
thrown off in "a hours, to warm half a hum
dred cold beds, in cold rooms, in the winter
And yet the person who has given out all
this heat, is no colder than he was before.
"To keep room warm in the common
way, you must make up fire. But it is not
enough to make one fire, for if you let it 90
out, the room soon becomes cold again. So
you have to keep putting on wood or coal, at
intervals, all the day long. But what inter-
nal fires, or other curious machinery keen
the body warm all the while, in the midst of
the cold and enable il not only to keep it.
self warm, but to impart heat constantly to
other persons and things around it?"