INSOLATION IN ITS MEDICO-LEGAL ASPECTS.
BY
ENOCH V. STODDARD, A.M., M.D.,
Emeritus Professor of Materia Medica and Hygiene in the University of Buffalo;
Member of the Medical Society of the State of New York and of the Central
New York Medical Association; Fellow of the New York Academy
of Medicine and of the American Academy of Medicine;
Late Surgeon 65th Regt. N. Y. Vols.; Late
Health Commissioner, Rochester,
N. Y.; etc., etc.
DEATH BY HEAT AND COLD.
TEMPERATURE OF THE BODY.
The production and regulation of heat in the body is a problem by no means elucidated. We consider heat production to be of internal origin, by a complex process involving tissue metamorphosis, chemical changes in nutrient elements, muscular movements, etc. Heat regulation is accomplished, not only by variation in the loss of heat by the body, but by what is more important, variations in the amount of heat generated. It is an accepted physiological conclusion that there exists in the body a thermotaxic nervous mechanism which controls its normal, as well as its abnormal, manifestations of heat.
The average temperature of the body in health is 37° C. (98.6° F.), in the axilla. Taken in the vagina or rectum, .9° C. (1.3° F.) higher is noted. The daily average range of variation is about 1° C. (1.8° F.).