Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 1.djvu/536

Rh found from 1° to 1½°, that of arterial blood being in all instances the greater of the two compared.

Since these results are at variance with the observations of Mr. Coleman and Mr. Cooper on the temperature of the two sides of the heart, Dr. Davy also tried the temperatures of these cavities, and found a difference of about 1°; the left ventricle being in all in- stances warmer than the right.

In the author's experiments on the temperature of different parts of the body, the most remarkable was with respect to that of the brain, which was found to be 1° lower than that of the rectum, al- though this part was also at least 1° lower than the right side of the heart, and the anterior part of the brain was even 1° or 2° lower than the posterior.

These results, Dr. Davy remarks, are in direct opposition to those of Dr. Crawford in every respect; since he found the capacity of arterial blood greater than that of venous. He found no difference of temperature between the two sides of the heart; and, in fact, the heat of all parts nearly the same. They are, on the contrary, per- fectly consistent with Dr. Black's opinion, that animal heat is pro- duced in the lungs; and they are not inconsistent with the hypo- thesis, that animal heat is dependent on the nervous system. In conclusion, the author adds some trials that he has made on the temperature of infants just born, which he found to be 2° inferior to that of adults; but on the succeeding day, when respiration was more perfectly performed, he found, on the contrary, an excess of 1°, agreeably to tbe fourteenth aphorism of Hippocrates.