The physiology, pathology, and treatment of asphyxia : including suspended animation in new-born children, and from drowning, hanging, wounds of the chest, mechanical obstructions of the air-passages, respiration of gases, death from cold, &c. &c. / by James Phillips Kay.

  • Kay-Shuttleworth, James Phillips, Sir, 1804-1877.
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The physiology, pathology, and treatment of asphyxia : including suspended animation in new-born children, and from drowning, hanging, wounds of the chest, mechanical obstructions of the air-passages, respiration of gases, death from cold, &c. &c. / by James Phillips Kay. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    water, it is evident that temperature exerts a similar influence on the duration of life in As- phyxia in the superior classes of animals. But the means of observing the influence of these agencies is necessarily more limited in the warm- blooded than in the inferior classes ; because they are generally unable to bear so great a reduction of temperature, or to endure so long an exposure to a more moderate cold, as hybernating, or cold- blooded, animals. The experiments of Edwards, however, indicate that the duration of life in As- phyxia in warm-blooded animals, is greatest, when the power of producing animal heat is most feeble, and when the body is exposed to a mean tempe- rature ; but that very great cold, and more than moderate warmth, are prejudicial. The most intimate relation subsists between animal heat and respiration. An elevated tem- perature cannot be maintained in any race of ani- mals, unless their respiratory organs enable them to expose the blood freely to the influence of the atmosphere. Those animals which consume the greatest quantity of air, and have therefore the greatest natural heat, are least able to bear a de- privation of the supply of oxygen. Young animals and the cold-blooded consume less oxygen than the warm-blooded, and in hybernating animals the state of torpor is distinguished by the slowness and