An attempt to establish physiognomy upon scientific principles.

  • Cross, John, 1790-1850.
Date:
1817
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An attempt to establish physiognomy upon scientific principles. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    haps, turn up that the growth of the body, other things being equal, is proportional to the tem- perature in which it is kept. Heat, therefore, seems to be favourable to growth, cold to be more favourable to energy. All animals have a mean temperature, which, for health and comfort, requires to be maintain- ed. From the pervading nature of heat, from the variety of temperature to which roaming animals are exposed, and from the ever-varying temperature of any one climate, as day and night, and summer and winter, successively re- volve, the animal body required to be furnished with preventives against the operation of changes in temperature, and with a self-accom- modating power to these changes. Respira- tion, that vital fire which is planted in every living being, must be viewed as the great source of animal heat. This fire, for the pur- pose of better maintaining the mean tempera- ture, is made to burn more strongly in propor- tion to the coldness of the atmosphere, while, for the same end, the surface of the animal is made to take on the fine downy covering, and L