UNION OF HUMAN GASES WITH OXYGEN.
Who says heat is not a union of the human gases with oxygen and other substances as they pass out of the excretory system. By what force do parts of the engine of life move? If by the motor power of electricity, how fast must the heart or life current run to ignite the gasolene of the body and set a person on fire and burn to fever heat?
If we know anything of the laws of electricity, we must know velocity modulates its temperature. Thus heat and cold are the effect.
If we understand anatomy as we should, we know man is the greatest engine ever produced, complete in form, an electro-magnet, a motor, and would be incomplete if it could not burn its own gases.
When man, is said to have fever, he is only on "fire," to burn out the deadly gases, which a perverted, dirty, abnormal, laboratory, has allowed to accumulate by friction of the journals of his body, or in the supply of vital fluids. We are only complete when normal in all parts,—a true compass points to the normal only.
When reasoning on the fever subject would it not be strictly in line to suppose that the lowest perceptible grade of fever requires a less additional physical energy to remove some foreign body from the person, that at first would naturally show a very light effect upon the human system, which would be the effect of itchy sensation.
FEVER AND NETTLE-RASH.
Let us stop and reason. Might this effect (itching) not come from obstructed gases that flow through and from the skin? If gas should be detained in the system by the excretory ducts the substance closing the porous system would cause irritation of nerves, and increase the heart's action to such degree that the temperature is raised to fever heat, by the velocity with which electricity is brought into action. Electricity being the force that is naturally required to contract muscles and force gases from the body.
Let us advance higher in the scale of foreign bodies until we arrive to the condition of steam, which is more dense than gas. Would it not take more force to discharge it? By the same rule of reasoning we find water to be much thicker as an element than either gas or steam.
Then we have lymph as another element, albumen, fibrin, with all the elements found in arterial and venous blood, all of which forces required to circulate, pass through and out of the system, must be increased to suit. Therefore we are brought to this conclusion, that the different degrees of temperature do mark the density of the fluids with which the motor engine has to contend.