The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1908-08-12

:7aa seems-that there should
orv hour of the day or night
orrfrularly fatal to human beings!
and vet such would appear to be the
fact
II is. indeed, truth sufficiently
s.,,v;ar. For it has long been a
,o+tar of common observation that
npople when they come to die, are
.+ liable to succumb to the grim
,..-~over lust before daybreak. 1t
% if the Angel of Death, whom
~, call Azrael, made a circuit of
Io Garth every twenty-four hours,
e-.irq q little ahead of the dawn.
pr+ the reason why? And that is
~, question. 1t is a problem which
,atorrifc men have set themselves to
oIra though as yet only with par
.,o1 success. They have been MAX
'nr an elaborate series of expert
monrs in regard to the matter, and
hove arrived at the conclusion that
no nhen0menOn in question is main
" ii not wholly, one OF tempera-
ture.
paonIe die just before daybreak
nacanse at that hour the body tenn
,,orarure is lowest-a circumstance
Which implies that their vitality IS
.1a, a+ q lower ebb than at any 9TH
W. time in the tWenty-tour hours.
II is most curious and interesting,
4nfs marter of human temperature
S.a5odv can say with certainty how
- That is to say, the warmth OF our
%,dfas-is produced, or how main
aimed at the level requisite for the
.1n+inuancp of life. All that we
I.now nOsitiyely is that it has a direct
4 raIarfon to what we call vitality, and
4 that if il falls only a little below the
4 normal point death arrives.
Anv physician will tell you that
Il +ha normal temperature OF the hu-
man body is SO 6-10 degrees Fab
ranhait But. as proved by recent
scientific Investigations, this is not
correct strictly speaking. There is,
II indeed. no point of the thermometer
q that can be indicated as representing
sucb normal temperature, because
N the latter in any man or woman IS
continually moving either up or
down And while moving downward
ar inward it is constantly making
little zigzags, being never exactly the
same for ten minutes together.
Some of the most valuable OF re-
cent experiments in this line have
been made by Prof. Armsby of the
State University of Pennsylvania.
He has found that during twenty
81 four hours the temperature of a per-
son of normal health may vary as
much as 3 degrees Fahrenheit. But
ISL the oldest thing about it is its
rythmic movement-that is to say,
its regular rise and fall, like that
Of the tide.
Its lowest ebb is between 3 and
A m.-the hour at which so many
people pass away. Its highest point
f is reached about 6 p. m. Apparently
its ebb and flow do not vary at all
with the time of year, and certainly
they are not affected by the habits
of the Individual Experiments have
proved that if a person turns the
routine of his life upside down,
sleeping all day and working all
night, the fluctuations of his tenn
Derature are unaltered, going on just
the same
It has been ascertained, too, that
when person travels around the
world, changing his longitude at the
n
the rhythm of his temperature goes
On just as in ordinary circumstances.
MBut it will be noticed that this i'm
Ri lies change of time-so that there
Meally is radical alteration in the
fO0 and flow. What, then, is the in
erence from this fact? Why, sim
Ny that the whole matter is gov
&ned and controlled by the sun?
We are, all of us, as one might
Fay children of the sun. All of our
ila and other activities are derived
origin from the energy of the
oIar orb, which grows the plants
nat furnish, whether directly or in
At form of meat, the fuel for our
Jules. Furthermore, it is the sun
Ial gives the necessary warmth to
"e "uld element in which we live
t.. the atmosphere Thus it is by
means surprising that it should
gIcISe control over our tempera-
me ebb and flow of this tempera-
uIe mas to do with the waxing and
aD'hg OF the day and with nothing
II reaches its lower point just
,.oIF daybreak, merely for the rea-
D mat at that hour the sun has
g| longest away from the earth
DIaTentIy, for the very opposite
r.o" 1t attains its highest point at
H.. clock in the evening. One
". imagine that the hours of
ossO and highest would vary with
r7ason, inasmuch as the sun rises
ana sets earlier in winter than
50 ' ;l That such is not the
ys..s s puzzle which the scientific
so oYY,SaJors have not yet been able
ON me whole problem, in truth, is far
ero d hnal and complete solution.
q i