On meteorological readings in relation to surgical practice / by Benjamin W Richardson.

  • Richardson, Benjamin Ward, 1828-1896.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On meteorological readings in relation to surgical practice / by Benjamin W Richardson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    12/32 (page 8)
    with—the result of the chemical changes was illustrated in elevation of temperature ; the temperature of the dead animal rose until, by loss from radiation and conduction, the further rise was checked. Afterwards, as the chemical changes were not renewed, there was decline of temperature to that of the surrounding air. There is a method by which you can make a similar observa- tion in the simplest manner, and without devising any special or elaborate experiment. Rabbits when killed for food are usually slain by a blow on the back of the head—a very pain- less and humane mode of killing. When, then, this process is carried out in a warm air, the temperature of the air being from 85° to 90° Fahr., the temperature of the body wiU be found to rise, immediately after the fatal blow, two and a half and even three degrees, and will be sustained luitil there is equaUsa- tion by radiation or conduction of heat from the body. The suddenness of the arrest of respiratory, cardiac, and intestinal motion is again the cause of increase of temperature. If, in a living animal, I could remove as much active sub- stance as would represent the active matter of the heart, re- spiratory organs, and digestive organs, without touching those parts, I should have the same rise of temperature as if the motions of those organs were suddenly suspended, with this difference—that, if force should continue to be fully evolved in the living animal, the increment of heat woidd continue, and, witli increase of resistance, would persist to increase unless it were equalised. But let me put still a better case forward in illustration. A few weeks since Mr. WeUs performed ovariotomy in a woman whose temperature before the operation was 98° Fahr. After the return to full power from the operation the temperature began to run up rapidly till it reached, such was the resistance, 104° Fahr. Suddenly there was death—death so rapid that the ]3rocess for the production of heat continued, even after the respiration had ceased, and the result was that a few minutes after death the temperature of the body rose to 109° Fahr. What instruction a case such as tliis affords !—what insight! The rise of animal temperature after the operation, the rise after death, both from one and the same physical cause.