The gentleman's hand-book of homoeopathy : especially for travelers and for domestic practice / by Egbert Guernsey.

  • Guernsey, Egbert, 1823-1903.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The gentleman's hand-book of homoeopathy : especially for travelers and for domestic practice / by Egbert Guernsey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    amount of heat given out in these warm climates where the temperature is nearly the same as the body, and in those intensely cold regions where it is 100° lower, and what a vast difference there must also be in the amount of food required to keep up that combustion, which pro- duces animal heat. Deprive the native of the South of food, and death would be slow in its progress, while the inhabitant of a frozen region, deprived of food, would speedily die. In the latter case, the enormous combustion required to be kept up to defend the system against cold, would in a short time exhaust the body of its carbon, and death would ensue. Satisfactory experiments show that an adult, perform- ing moderate exercise in a temperate climate, takes into the system through the lungs, from the atmospheric air, a little over thirty-two ounces of oxygen daily, and con- sumes in the form of food thirteen or fourteen ounces of carbon per day. This oxygen uniting with the carbon, forms carbonic acid, a portion of which is thrown off from the lungs ; another portion uniting with the hydrogen, forms the perspiration and urine, which pass off through the skin and kidneys. The result of this union is the combustion which produces animal heat. Food Governed by Climate and Habits of Life.— It is evident, then, that the amount, of carbon consumed in the healthy system must be in proportion to the oxygen taken into the body. The amount of oxygen inspired