Influence of Poisons upon Animal Heat as a Cause of Death

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Dr. Sequard, of Paris, has published some )eculiar views respecting his experiments vith poisons, reducing animal heat. He says le has seen death take place in a rabbit after L diminution of its heat of only 22 of Fah., ind he never observed any animal live after le had diminished its temperature more than 14 Fah. Accordingly as the heat is rapidly iiminished, so is death produced in less time. iVhen by a wound or poison the temperature ?f a man is reduced many degrees, his life is u danger from that very cause. It is thus in :holera, palsy, &c. In cases of poisoning it has been found ihat the temperature of the person always deceased, and Chossut, who injected opium into he veins of a dog, found the temperature di-ninish from 105 to 62 Fah. M. Sequard )elieves that many poisons may kill simply by heir action in reducing animal heat. He has bund that some poisons which will kill ani-nals when there is no obstacle to prevent the liminution of the body's temperature, will not lestroy life when the temperature is sustained )y artificial means to its normal degree— Equal doses of poisons were given to two ani- mals as much like one another as possible. One was left in a room at a temperature of 46* Fah., the other was kept in a place where the temperature was 75 Fah. The first was dead after a certain number of hours, the other that Was kept warm was generally cured very soon. In cases of poisoning by opium, belladona, tobacco, camphor, alcoholic, acetic, oxalic acidj and many other poisons, physicians should labor to prevent a diminution of heat by keeping the patient as near as possible, by artificial means up to the standard of 100 Fah.

Scientific American Magazine Vol 8 Issue 10This article was published with the title “Influence of Poisons upon Animal Heat as a Cause of Death” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 8 No. 10 (), p. 80
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican11201852-80a

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