Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1860-11-24
A MANS BODY A LIVING STOVE.

The Eclectic RocieiC, treating Of the caoric
or heat in human body, compares our body to
"liviug stovc-wolking -places-furnaces
in the hesh," if those terms can be applied to
any apparatus for the express production of hu-
man caloric. After stating the fact of the latent
heat of the human frame, the writer says: sup
pose it to be the month Of January, when win
ter is presumed to be reigning in full vigor, and
every inanimalc object appears to have been
drained of its caloric still the human form will
exhibit a surplus of sixty degrees above the
freezing point. Why is thisP How does it
happen that while bronze statue huctuates in
its temperature with every passing breeze, the
living organism maintains its standard heat un-
impaired, and preserves its tropical climate
within, although the air should be full of frost
and the ground enveloped in snow? 1t is man.
itest that we must have some power of "brew-
ing" ca6ric for ourselves. Assuming that our
bodies are veritabe stoves, the reviewer pro-
ceeds to explain where we procure our fuel
Fortunately our coal and frewood, he adds, are
stored up in very interesting form. They are
laid before us in the shape of bread and butter,
pudding and pies, rashers of bacon for the la
borer and launches of vonison or turtle soup
for the epicure Instead of being brought up
in scutles, they are presented in tureens dishes,
or tumbers, or all Of them in pleasing success
sion.
Speaking seriously, and looking at the ques-
tion from mere human point of view could
any project appear more hopeless than one for
burning fuel in soft, delicate fabric like the
human body--a fabric composed, for the most
part of mere iluids-a fabric that might be ca
silly scorched by excess of heat or damaged by
excess Of cold? Does it not appear like touch
of QuiXotism in nature TO design q stove with
flesh for its walls, veins for its iues skin for its
covering? Yet here we have seen is an appa-
ratus which, as if by magic produces a steady
stream of hoat-not trickling penuriously from
the fountains, but flowing on day and night,
winter and summer, without a moments cessa-
ton, from January to December.
Garry this splendid machine to the coolest re-
gions on the globc-set it up in a scene where
the frosts are so crushing that nature seems to
be trampled doad-.t still pours out its mystic
rious supplies with unabated profusion. 1t is
an apparatus, too, which does its work unwatch-
ed and, in great measure, unaided. The very
fuel which is thrown into it in random heaps is
internally ,sifted and sorted, SO that the true
comOusuOle clements are conveyed to their
place and applied TO their duty with unerring
precision. No hand is needed to trim its fires,
to temper its glow, to remove its ashes. Smoke
there is none, sparks there are none, flame there
is none. The pulmonary chimney is never
clogged with human grim. All is so delicatey
managed that the fairest skin is neither shriv-
eled nor blackened by the burnings within. Is
this apparatus placed in circumstances which
rob it too fast of the caloric? Then the appe-
titc becomes clamorous for food, and in satisfy
ing its demands the fleshy stove is silently re-
peuished Or, are we placed in peril from su-
perabundant WARMTH Then the tiny flood
gates of perspration are flung open, and the
surface is laid under water until the fires within
are reduced to their wonted level Assailed on
the one hand by heat, the body resists the at
tempt if resistance be possible, until the store
of moisture is dissipated; assaied on the other
by cold, it keeps the enemy at bay until the
boarded stock of fuel is expended. Thus pro-
tected, thus provisioned let us ask whether
these human hearths are entitled to rank among
the standing marvels of creation? For is it not
startling to find that, let the climate be mild or
rigorous, let the wind blow from the sultry des-
ert or come loaded with polar sleet let the fuc-
tuations of temperature be as violent as they
may without us, there shall be still calm, un-
changing and undying summer within us.