Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, February 1899: Volume LIV, No. 4, February 1899 — John Shaqi
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, February 1899: Volume LIV, No. 4, February 1899Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, February 1899: Volume LIV, No. 4, February 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
From the preceding facts we may conclude that, as long as the body
continues in health, the "heat-regulating power," which constantly
tends to preserve an equilibrium of temperature, is capable of
resisting the ordinary agencies that, operating externally or
internally, exaggerate the heat-producing conditions, and thus destroy
the individual. But if the person is suffering from a disease which
weakens the "heat-regulating power" these deleterious agencies, which
the healthy person may resist, will readily overpower the already
quite exhausted heat-regulating forces, and he perishes by combustion.
It is very evident that in an organism having complicated functions,
like that of man, and subject to such a multitude of adverse
influences, the balance between health and disease must be very nicely
adjusted. Too great an elevation or too great a depression of
temperature may destroy the "heat-regulating power," and disease or
death will be the consequence. Or this "heat-regulating power" may be
weakened or destroyed by causes generated within the body, or received
from without, and the heat-producing agencies are then under
influences which may prove to be powerfully destructive forces.
It will not now be difficult to understand in what manner high
temperature affects the public health of large cities. Evidently in
the _direct_ action of heat upon the human body we have the most
powerful agency in the production of our great summer mortality. While
sunstroke represents the maximum direct effect of solar heat upon the
human subject, the large increase of deaths from wasting chronic
diseases and diarrhœal affections, of children under one year of age
and persons upward of seventy years of age, shows the terrible effects
of the prevailing intense heat of summer upon all who are debilitated
by disease or age and thereby have their "heat-regulating power"
diminished. The fact has been established by repeated experiment that
when solar or artificial heat is continually applied to the animal the
temperature of its body will gradually rise until all of the
compensating or heat-regulating agencies fail to preserve the
equilibrium, and the temperature reaches a point at which death takes
place from actual combustion. In general, a temperature of 107° F. in
man would be regarded as indicating an unfavorable termination of any
disease. In persons suffering from sunstroke the temperature often
ranges from 106° F. to 110° F., the higher temperature appearing just
before a fatal termination.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account