TEMPERATURE OF THE BODY.
The terms cold-blooded and warm-blooded animals serve roughly to indicate, the former, those animals which possess a temperature little raised above that of the surrounding medium; the latter, those with one considerably higher. Fishes, frogs, and reptiles are cold-blood ed animals, while birds and quadrupeds are warm-blooded. Heat is produced through the combination of the oxygen of the atmosphere with the carbon and hy drogen of the blood and tissues. A much larger quantity of carbon and hydrogen is added to the blood from the food than the ordinary nutrition of the body de mands; and the oxygen inhaled from the atmosphere, uniting with these ele ments, produces heat, carbonic acid, and water—the latter products representing the ashes of the bodily fire. Thus the temperature of the living body depends on chemical change. It is produced by the oxidation of combustible materials derived from the tissues and from the blood. The quantity of carbon and hy drogen which in any given period unite with oxygen in the body, may be ac counted for by the quantity of heat gen erated in the same period. The tem
perature of an animal must thus be pro portionate to its respiration, and to the activity and frequency of its breathing movements.
The circumstances which influence the temperature of the human body in health are very varied. The normal tempera ture of the internal parts varies from 98.5 to 99.5. The average temperature of the armpit is 98.6. In infant life the temperature is about 1° F. above that of the adult; and the temperature of old age resembles that of infancy. The tem perature of the female slightly exceeds that of the male; and the temperature of the human body falls to its lowest level in the early morning. The influ ence of disease on temperature is very marked. In typhus fever and pneumo nia the temperature may rise to 106° F. On the side of lowness of temperature may be mentioned cases of inorbus oxruleus, in which the blood is imper fectly cerated, when the temperature may sink to F.