Page:The advancement of science by experimental research - the Harveian oration, delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, June 27th, 1883 (IA b24869958).pdf/43

 disturbed, the activity of the cutaneous transpiration is necessarily increased, the mind during the intensity of the heat often becomes less able to perform its function, and unless by degrees the system becomes acclimatized the health utterly fails and the life may be forfeited. The Hindoo and the Negro have become accustomed by many generations of life to a state that the European cannot bear; the organism is changed, and the alteration is not only represented by the pigmental colouring of the skin, but by an adaptation in the whole economy. An opposite state is observed amongst those whose lot is cast in the colder regions near the Arctic Circle; the Greenlander and the Esquimaux, by many years of change through succeeding gen. erations can bear with impunity and with enjoyment a temperature which would soon be fatal to the inhabitants of Central Africa. The food requirements of man are different, and whilst the Hindoo can live and thrive on rice, the Icelander needs his more oleaginous sustenance, the oil and the blubber become his life supply; and every