On the temperature in diseases : a manual of medical thermometry.

  • Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the temperature in diseases : a manual of medical thermometry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Gerstein Science Information Centre at the University of Toronto, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Gerstein Science Information Centre, University of Toronto.

    42/489 (page 26)
    2G iiisTonv AM) nini,if)(;ir\riiv. pxperimcnls and observations on the inlliuMicc of the l)rain in the generation of animal heat,'I'hil.Trans.' i(Si2, ]). ;]7<^). Jlis experi- ments had shown him that, in decajjitated animals, uhen tlie cervical vessels were ligatnred,nnd artificial respiration ^vas maintained for some hour?, in sjjitc of the conversion of venous into arterial blood, main- tained for so long a time, the temperature of the body sank more rapidly than in those cases in which (after decapitation) artificial respiration was not tried. lie deduced the conclusion that no heat was evolved in the conversion of venous blood into arterial by respira- tion, and that the source of heat must be sought for in the nervous system. This explanation led not only to a lively discussion but to further investigations as to tcmi)crature. Dallon at once opposed Brodic, and JohiiDary, in particular ('Philosophical Transactions,' 1814, p. 590), published experiments on the capacity of arterial and venous blood for heat, and comparative researches on the temperature of both kinds of blood, as well as that of different parts of the body. A communication of Hale's (in Meckel's ^Archives,' iii, 429), and one \>y Legallois (Ibid., 436) may also be mentioned. (3n the other hand, Nasse, the translator of Brodie's tractate (Rcil &: Auteurietli's ' Archives,' 1815, Bd. xii, 404—446) pro- nounced strongly in favour of Brodie. Earle also believed that Brodie's theory was supported by patho- logical observations. CJiossat (see 'Mem. sur I'influence du systeme nerveux sur la cbaleur animale.' These de Paris^ 1820) considered the opinion that the source of animal heat was to be sought in the sympathetic nerve, established by a great number of exjieriments. In the course of this discussion the Prench Academy offered a prize for a treatise on the source of animal heat. The essay of Didong (read December, 1822), and that of Despretz (read January, J 823) were published. Both of them decided for Lavoisier's theory. They estimated the oxygen absorbed by animals, and the carbonic acid which they exhaled, ascribed the overplus of oxygen absorbed to formation of water; estimated the total production of heat by tb.e combination of oxygen and carbonic acid^and that of the ascertained excess of oxygen combined with a calculated quantity of hydrogen, in proportion to form water, and compared these results with the total heat-production in animals^ as determined by calorimetry (now' for the first time made use of for determining physiological ques- tions) ; as, however, an excess of heat was found to be produced (as