The influence of climate, and other agents, on the human constitution : with reference to the causes and prevention of disease, among seamen : with observations on fever in general, and an account of the epidemic fever of Jamaica / by Robert Armstrong.

Armstrong, R. (Robert) (Civil engineer)

Date:: 1843

Credit: The influence of climate, and other agents, on the human constitution : with reference to the causes and prevention of disease, among seamen : with observations on fever in general, and an account of the epidemic fever of Jamaica / by Robert Armstrong. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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$portion was completed on the twenty-eighth day, without any assistance from art. In graminivorous animals, the lung is less expanded, in proportion to the size of the body: their food is less stimulating, and the circulation is slower. In the horse, the pulse is about forty-five in the minute, and the power of the constitution in repairing injuries is more feeble ; fractured bones unite with difl&culty; ulcers require powerfully stimulating applications, to exalt the vitality of the part, and promote cicatrisation. Among the lower tribes of animals, as reptiles, where the temperature of their bodies is often lower than that of the atmosphere, the respiratory apparatus is still more contracted; and from the slowness of their res- piration, a smaller quantity of oxygen is presented to the extreme branches of the pulmonary artery: the pulse is slow in proportion, and wounds with difficulty heal. In a large species of lizard (Lacerta Iguana) the number of respirations, after many observations, was found to be about seventeen, and the pulsations of the artery in the axilla, about twenty-two per minute. A wound in the muscular part of the thigh, inflicted by a cutlass in digging the animal out of his hole, shewed no disposition to heal. At the end of three weeks, although the animal was well fed, the wound presented the same raw appearance as when first inflicted. At the end of seven weeks, it had not diminished in size, but something like incipient cicatrisation appeared aroujid the margin. Many other analogies might be adduced to shew, that the energy of the functions of life has an intimate relation to the quantity of oxygen con- sumed by respiration. The justly celebrated Baron Cuvier observes, L'histoiredes rapports qu'on observe c$