THE 
♦ 
WESTERN JOURNAL 
O F 
MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 
JUNE, 1 8 4 4. 
A.rt. I.-Experimental Researches upon Febrile Color icily * 
both before Jand •after death-Post-mortem Fever. By Ben- 
net Dowler,* M.D., of Nei/ Orleans. . 
In these researches, it is not intended to enter upon the 
general theory of fever, though a few brief explanatory no- 
tices of some elementary, or rather incidental points, are 
deemed for the purpose of illustration compar- 
ison. 
It has been often that the ancignt fathers in 
medicine regarded fever in**d very literal sense, as a morbid 
Jieat; a notion which, though ridiculed b\»sotie modern au- 
thors, has prevailed in all times, and in all places among 470 
Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
the people. This simple view of fever will suffer little by 
comparison with the vague, cumbrous definitions of tfie most 
fastidious wosologists, such as Cullen, Good, and others. Dr. 
Billing, a late writer, says that the essential symptom of 
fever is "debility"-"all superadditions non-essential," (Prin. 
Med. p. 231 etseq.); Boisseau calls it an idiopathic local ir- 
ritation, (Fevers, p. 490): Broussais holds the same doctrine. 
British authors, Jess simple in their definitions, give heat an 
obscure position in the catalogue. Wilson Pjpilip, (vol. 1, p. 
43, Fevers), makes fevers to consist in the following symp- 
toms: "Languor, lassitude, and other signs of debility, followed 
by a frequent pulse and increased heat, without any primary 
local affection." Fordyce says, "Fever is a disease of the 
whole system," (Fevers, p. 16, et passim). Some authors re- 
gard putridity, some a hurried pulse, &c., as the essential 
characteristic, but after all the counties* works upoti the 
subject it would seem that no single synjptom is more to be 
relied on than that given by Hippocrates and Galen,-a 
burning, a morbid heat: the latter considers that this unnatu- 
ral heat originates in the heart, whence it is diffused over the 
whole body: '•'•Color quidam prater naturam in corde gene- 
ratus:"-both these authors appear to regard febrile-, heat 
not only as to* its augmentations, but also with respecyc 
to alterations of quality and unequal distributions in the 
*body. • 
The ancients, it must be confessed, were •sometimes very 
incorrect and extravagant in their estimates of the impor- 
tance of heat. '•'•Quod calidum vocamus," said Hippocrates, 
'••id mihi et immortale esse videtur, et cuncta intelligere, et videre, 
et audire, et scire omnia, turn prasentia turn futura. {Lib. 
de earn. Cfr 1). 
Multitudinous analogies might, perhaps, be fe- 
brile caloricity,and concentrations of caloric applied to the body 
in burns of a certain degree; the effects Ire somewhat similar, as 
the rigor, the reaction, and even the internal lesions. Mr. Curling 
noticed vomitings and purgings of blood, and found acute ulcera- ' 
tions of the intestinal mucous tissue, chiefly in the duodenum, Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
471 
as results of burns. (Med. Chir. Rev., Jan. 1843). Baron 
Dupuytren gives a summary of the symptoms of burns in the 
first degree, over a large surface, in the following words: 
"The pulse rises, becomes frequent, the tongue reddens, and 
the phenomena of gastro-intestinal irritation tare developed." 
(Lemons. 1G). It will yet in all probability be proved even 
in algid or congestive fever, that the heat of the central parts 
is, what the patient feels it to be, very great, morbid, unnatu- 
ral, characteristic. 
As the following experiments and observations afford, in 
many instances, deductions so opposite to those of all the au- 
thors I have seen, I must throw myself upon the indulgence 
of the reader until all my facts have been given. And, since 
I intend to give the details of each experiment, so that others 
may prove or disprove them, I may without arrogance 
ask this much in Advance. For example, if my observations 
show that there is qn increase of heat after apparent death, 
a true post-mortem fever, hotter than is ever known during 
life-that the thigh is hotter than the epigastrum, the heart, the 
lungs, and'the brain,-let not the reader conclude that I am rftis- 
taken, simply because others advance doctrines, not facts, 
quite different. Be it remembered that my observations con- 
tradict their opinions only, not their experiments, because 
they have made none, so far as 1 know, under the same 
circumstances. The animal heat is supposed to be greater in 
the brain, heaft, lungs andjstomach, than in the rectum or 
thigh, because the latter are farther from the centre. Now, 
so far as I have experimented, immediately, as well as 
some hours after death from- fever, the contrary is gener- 
ally true, and, in the absence of conflicting experiments, I 
think that no theoretical view can weigh a feather against 
facts. 
I may here remark, that except the primary stage of fever, 
the best period, or paint d&- depart, for ascertaining the true 
morbid heat proper to that malady is tha| immediately after 
death. 
The temperature of the human body, after death from fe- 472 
Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
ver at least falls not under the dominion of the atmospheric 
temperature, in general, for a period more or less prolonged; 
on the contrary it augments. This fact appears conclusive 
against the exclusive respiratory or chemical origin of animal 
heat. teaches, as it appears to me, a very differ- 
ent doctrine from that which makes the lungs a heating fur- 
nace-the calorific focus of the whole body. Ought not the 
abundance of wTater and carbon which take the gaseous form 
in the respiratory act, to cause a perpetual refrigeration to 
go on in the lungs during life? Transpiration by the skin, or 
evaporation, performs a similar function. Both these organs 
may act too much or too little; they may refrigerate too far 
below the standard of health, or they may fail to reduce a 
morbid heat when once kindled up. Vitalism presents an- 
tagonistic barriers more or less effectual to these functional 
deviations. Cutaneous and pulmonary transpiration, cHbmis- 
try and vitality, may thus combine, during life, to lessen the 
most intense morbid heat of fever, as well as in cases of ex- 
ternal heat. But in the moment of death, this triune coali- 
tioTi is broken-tfie vital forces are scattered-cutaneous and 
pulmonary refrigeration is overthrown, and for an indefinite 
period, often short, the morbid heat, the true fever, un-repres- 
sed, reveals itself, until dissipated by the antagonism of the 
surrounding temperature. Heat and cold are no more pro- 
duced, augmented, or diminished, except by. those laws which 
govern, inert matter alone. I 
Perspiration, a chemico-vital action necessary to life, show- 
ing itself often as sweat, but still oftener eluding our vision 
as an invisible vapor, appears active even in death: some- 
times. ''Survives the death of other functions, as seen in trans- 
udations standing in drops upon the skin: the steam or vapor 
arising from the body, charged with the febrile od&r, is obvi- 
ous to the sense of smelling. 
The following inquiry relates not to the physiology, 
pathology or tlieratpeutics of temperature, but to its mor- 
bid and post-mortem history. It is not a little remarkable, Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
473 
that the facts should be so few and so discrepant on this sub- 
ject. 
Will not the period arrive when the thermometer shall be- 
come the constant companion of the physician, and his guide 
as to certain remedial measures at the bed-side? Or is it a 
matter of indifference, in all diseases, whether the patient be 
plunged into a hot bath, or steamed nearly to scalding by the 
Thompsonian doctor, or macerated in cold water by means 
of cloths for hours, then plunged into a cold bath, to be fol- 
lowed with interminable douches and drinks? Must the pa- 
tient during every walk, at every water-fall or pool, take a 
fresh bath, plunging and drinking like a fish, after the mode of 
the Silesian farmer, Priessnitz, and his many followers? 
The Thompsonian declares that the only cure is heat; the 
Silesian, that the only cure is cold water? Why should a 
sick every where from 5° to 8° hotter than in health, 
be subjected to hot mustard baths, or another suffering from 
concentrations of internal heat, while the skin is in an algid 
collapse, be enveloped in the cold-water apparatus? Is there 
no criterion but caprice? If the physician'has not the •pa- 
tience to call to his aid the thermometer in order to give 
precision to his prescriptions, let there be a Thermist or The- 
mometer-man, or let the cupper add this instrument to his ap- 
paratus. At the present moment, while the cold-water treat- 
ment is spreading, it is the more necessary to seek precise 
knowledge upon this subject. 
I now proceed to give an account of the circumstances at- 
tendant upon the following experiments: 
Finding no thermometer exactly suited for my purpose I 
chose, as the least inconvenient, Reaumur's bath thermome- 
ter, having a double cylinder, one in the other; the outer 
one enclosing a paper scale. This, with all its tardiness, is 
the best I have yet seen; though I intend to direct the con- 
struction of two thermometers, so modified as "to answer the 
purposes of the operator better than any I have used. It is 
evident that the common thermometer, with the metallic scale, 
is inapplicable; the stem is too fragile to be trusted to the 474 
Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Cdloricity. 
hand of a delirious patient; the bulb being globular, or irreg- 
ular, or too small, cannot be grasped accurately, or confined 
by a bandage in the hand so as to exclude the air. A very 
large instrument, containing much quicksilver, robs the part 
to which it is applied of too much heat. For the hand, the 
pqpliteal region,' and the cavities, a rod-shaped bulb, about 
two inches long-and for the surface of the forehead, trunk 
and thigh, a flattened and curved bulb, would be most con- 
venient. 
The calorific power, susceptibility, and conduction of 
the body differ greatly at different times, without any very 
appreciable changes in the circumstances. Sometimes my 
instrument attained its maximum in 5, sometimes in 10, some- 
times in 15 minutes. On some occasions I refrigerated the 
instrument with ice-water, but this I found not only erroneous 
in its result by robbing the part of its natural heat, but it 
prolonged the experiment to an inconvenient extent. On the 
contrary the instrument ought to be kept nearly to the de- 
gree of the part, though this I often omitted. I have tested 
the instrument I used by thermometers made in Paris, in 
London, and in this country; by the published tables of Mr. 
Lillie oi this city, without finding any discrepancy worthy of 
attention; also by boiling water, which agreed exactly in the 
last two of four trials: in the summer two experiments fell 
a little short of 80° R., 212° Fah. 
Comparison of my observations with R.'s Ther. from Jan. 
9th, 1844, to the 16th of the same month, with those referred 
to above, taken with Fah's. and published in the Republi- 
can newspaper for the same period. Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
475 
NEW ORLEANS, LAT. 29° 57'. 
Day 
of the 
month 
8 A. M. 
2 P. 
M. 
8 P 
M. 
Jan. 
Fah. 
Reau. 
Fah. 
Reau. 
Fah. 
Reau. 
9 
64 
65 
74 
73 
70 
704 
10 
70j 
71 
68 
69 
644 
644 
11 
62 
624 
644 
644 
63 
65 
12 
69 
704 
78 
78 
72 
73 
13 
61 
60 
71 
614 
59 
14 
62 
62 
79 
77 
71 
74 
15 
72 
73 
644 
65| 
63 
644 
16 
634 
65 
58 
58 
494 
50 
Though the bath thermometer, (thermometre pour les 
Bains')., reaches its maximum usually in 5 to 10 minutes, yet 
this is not always the case, especially in cool weather, and 
in some cases after appearing to be stationary a short time 
it begins to mount slowly a degree ox' even more: I have 
known it to decline as much in a few instances without any 
very evident cause. 
The principal points of demonstration in the living body 
are the following: The hand, the axilla, the folds of the groin, 
the perineum, and the back part of the knee joint, when the 
leg is bent so that the heel shall press against the thigh. The 
horny induration of the skin of the hand incidental to laborers 
forms no objection if the instrument be held properly. It is 
a remarkable fact that the patient, even when more or less 
delirious, is apt to hold the instrument in a perfect manner; 
he grasps it a little too strongly; he fixes his attention upon 
it and drops his incoherent conversations. In raving deli- 
rium and deep coma the operator's fingers must be applied 
so as to close the patient's hand, or a bandage, or a hand- 
kerchief may be used for the same purpose. When the in- 
strument is applied in the axilla the patient by lying on his 
side compresses it effectually excluding the air: nearly the 
same effects may be attained in the perineum, and in the 
scroto-inguinal region by crossing or flexing the thighs. The 476 
Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
popliteal region is one of the most convenient places, though 
unfortunately it did not occui' to me in time to avail myself 
of it to any great extent: the patient lying on his back draws 
his heel against the buttock, or he may lie on his side and do 
the same, or the leg may be fixed against the thigh by carry- 
ing a single band around the ankle and upper part of the 
thigh. These points form for practical purposes a good, 
though not a perfect calorific circle, because the feet and 
head are excluded. The tongue sq much relied on is for 
many reasons ineligible; breathing, moisture, evaporation 
modify the result; it is inconvenient and repulsive, and if the 
patient be delirious it is impossible. 
In the dead subject these points, except the hand, are 
alike available, together with many others of greater value, 
as the rectum, vagina and artificial punctures, by which all 
the cavities may be explored with facility. These latter 
should be made no larger than is absolutely necessary to ad- 
mit the instrument, say the third of an inch, and in such a 
manner as to exclude the air. This is easily done upon the 
chest, &c., by drawing the skin so that when punctured it 
shall act as a valve over the internal orifice. The highest 
portion of the pericardium and heart may be stabbed, so as 
to admit the instrument without exposure; the instrument 
may be forced into the parenchyma of the liver without any 
cutting in most cases. 
For a considerable time I was at a loss how to reach the 
brain without exposure. All known modes of opening the 
brain are bad, nay sometimes murderous in a pathological 
sense; the saw cuts vessels in the dura mater or even deep- 
er, causing sanguinous effusions and discolorations, discharg- 
ing at the same time, the serosity in the arachnoidal sack; 
the hammer often produces the rupture of minute vessels at 
and under the point of the stroke. Even on the other side 
of the head, where the counter stroke {contre-coup\ is receiv- 
ed ecchymoses, and bloody infiltrations of the membranes of 
the brain may and often do thus happen. Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
477 
At length it occurred to me that the orbit of the eye 
would afford every possible facility of reaching the brain 
without admitting the air. The tissues at the inner angle of 
the eye were divided-an iron punch as large as the ther- 
mometer was used to perforate the thin bones of the orbit 
which requires but little force-the thermometer passes readily, 
without even destroying the eye in most cases. 
Though I have not restricted my observations to yellow 
fever, yet this is perhaps the best fundamental type, not. 
only for the study of febrile pathology in general, but for the 
study of temperature, because it is the most acute fever known, 
and because the various tissues of the body are usually but 
little altered by remote secondary sub-lesions, of a general 
character, not directly connected with the disease. For ex- 
ample, the exterior of the body though much discolored, pre- 
sents no bed sores, no emaciation-the muscles nd pale- 
ness, softness, inelasticity-the cellular tissue no serosity- 
the organs no atrophy, &c. The original malady is not lost 
in the labyrinth of tedious, transforming, secondary affec- 
tions. 
The external caloricity of yellow fever, is, in the living bo- 
dy, usually greatest in its primary, less in its middle, and 
least in its closing stages, at such points of demonstration as 
are most easy of access, though these variations may or may 
not prevail in the central organs. These propositions will 
be proved hereafter. 
With a zeal deserving all commendation experimenters 
have sacrificed hecatombs of the inferior animals. Scorning 
to retreat into the mazes of an unexplained vitalism for 
physiological and pathological explanations, they have boldly 
appealed to the physical sciences, to vivisections, and to dis- 
eased conditions artificially produced, for the establishment 
of the principles which govern the living body in a healthy 
and morbid state. Even when they fail in these difficult 
enterprises, they can say as a royal but defeated soldier said 
after an unfortunate battle--we have lost all but our honor." 
Of the essential nature of an isolated vitality we know no- Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
478 
thing. Of its material manifestations we know something, 
but that something is modified by those laws which govern 
dead or inert matter, presenting a very complex combina- 
tion which it is difficult to analyse so as to show which is 
strictly vital, and which exclusively physical. 
But in these crusades against vital explanations, at the head 
of which stands that veteran of vivisectors, Magendie, is 
there not danger of running into the opposite extreme? Is 
not an experiment, when modified by the agonies of mortal 
vivisection, or a fatal poison introduced into the blood-ves- 
sels, more or less equivocal, unsatisfactory, nay fallacious, 
in its application to a natural disease, or a physiological ac- 
tion, or any law of natural philosophy? It is but too much 
like that judicial proof, in the criminal jurisprudence of a 
period not long since passed, called the torture, consisting 
of screws, wedges, wheels, pullies, dislocations, fractures, 
burnings, drawings, and quarterings, so contrived as to ex- 
tract evidence, by which the victim sometimes confessed not 
only the truth, but a good deal more, accusing himself of sor- 
cery, witchcraft, and other supernatural and impossible mis- 
demeanors? 
Surgery has taken advantage of this mode of inquiry, and 
with the best results. A better example could not be re- 
ferred to than that recently given to the world by Professor 
Gross in his experimental and critical "Inquiry into the Na- 
ture and Treatment of Wounds of the Intestines." (Western 
Jour. Med., 1843). But the proof by the torture in physiol- 
ogy and pathology must not be too much relied on, even when 
applied by such an operator as the distinguished Magendie. 
Dogs are available in surgery, but except hydrophobia they do 
not suffer much in common with humanity, as fevers, &c. 
Now this cannot be applied to the mode of proceeding I have 
adopted in taking the temperature as soon as sensation 
ceases. If the thigh be 113° sometime, say one to three 
hours after death, what may not have been the heat of the 
central organs throughout the whole malady? The greatest 
objection which theorists can bring against this mode of study- Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
479 
ing fever in its literal sense, immediately after apparent 
death, is the fact, or supposed fact, that the heat, morbid and 
healthy, must cease along with the action of the heart, lungs, 
and senses. Though these may die simultaneously in a few 
cases, yet such is not the fact generally. But the objection 
shows the importance of the inquiry, since it implies that how- 
ever great the post-mortem fever may be, the ante-mortem fe- 
ver must have been greater, and if so, pathologists have 
greatly underrated the intensity of febrile heat. This mode 
may have its modifying circumstances too, but they are nat- 
ural, not artificial. 
In the history of the progress oi the medical sciences, and 
particularly of physiological experimenting, animal temper- 
ature has a conspicuous place: this is a salient point in Baron 
Cuvier's celebrated work (Hist. des Prog, des Scien. Nat.) 
In almost every weekly meeting of the French Academy of 
Science, this is a prominent theme, as may be seen in the 
ponderous quarto tomes (Comptes Rendus), annually pub- 
lished by that learned institution. Among its members, Bec- 
querel and Breschet have distinguished themselves by re- 
searches upon this subject. 
The healthy temperature is a matter of the utmost im- 
portance in determining what may be regarded as morbid heat 
Broussais says, "the observing physician never will attempt 
to investigate morbid affections except by the lights of physi- 
ology" (Chron. Phi eg. v. 2, p. 10). It may be well to ex- 
amine briefly what the authorities say on these topics. Bec- 
querel and Breschet represent the heat of the interior of the 
body to be 98.6° Fah. (Compt. Ren. tom. 6, p. 438)-Fordyce 
97°, (on Fevers)-Muller, (Phys.) 100f° to 1011°-Dr. Beau- 
mont, the best authority on the temperature of the stomach, 
says it gives an average of 100°, (Experiments on Martin). 
Copeland fixes human temperature from 96° to 100°, (Diet., 
art., cold). Muller says that the temperature is lower, the 
farther removed the point is from the centre-axilla 98°; loins 
96j°; thigh 94°; leg 93° or 91°. Again, mouth and rectum 
97.7° to 98.6°: he thinks there must be some error in several 480 
Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
experiments of Dr. Jno. Davy, in which Dr. D. found the 
heat somewhat higher in the rectum than in the brain, (Phys, 
p. 94). Magendie (Phys, by Prof. Revere) lays down the 
same doctrine: "the chest is the centre of animal heat, which 
there approaches 104°, while the limbs are 88° or 90°" (p. 94). 
Again: "those parts which are most distant from the heart or 
receive less blood are colder-the limbs are colder than the 
trunk," (Edit. 1844, p. 448). Prof. M. Edwards (Anat. and 
Phys., p. 154), holds the same doctrine. Now, it will be 
seen that febrile caloricity is not distributed, at least in the 
dead body, according to these laws, until a certain period af- 
ter death, the period of refrigeration. 
Whether morbid heat be simply an augmentation of animal 
heat, or some deleterious combination of it with solar and ter- 
restrial caloric, latent and free, is foreign to our present pur- 
pose. It will be necessary to take a rapid glance at its 
character, in the only point of view in which it has been con- 
templated by authors with some attention, namely, in its range 
in the living body, principally during fevers. We shall per- 
ceive, hereafter, the strong and unexpected contrast afforded 
by the dead body. 
Muller's estimate of the maximum morbid temperature 
is in some diseases as high as from 106° to 107° Fah. 
Horn, Fordyce, and Elliotson put the maximum in fever at 
107°; Dunglison at 106°, (Phys. vol. 2, p. 200); Currie at 
105°, one case only at 108°, (W. Philip, Fevers, vol. 1, p. 
124); Colhoun at 105° (Greg. Prac., note, vol. 1, p. 45); 
Bouillaud says that the heat in typhoid varies from 33° to 41° 
cent. 91t° to Fah., being always more elevated than 
in health, (Diet, des Diet, de Med., t. 8, p. 646, Paris, 1841). 
Magendie says that the temperature of the body never ex- 
ceeds 40° cent., 104° Fah. (Leet, on the Blood, Bell's Edit, 
p. 236). Sir Astley Cooper, who quotes Jno. Hunter, de- 
nies that there is any increase of temperature in the interior 
of the body from internal inflammation, though upon the sur- 
face in external inflammation he admits a rise of 7°, that is as 
high as 90°, under the following circumstances: Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
481 
"On tile inside of the thigh, where a blister was applied, 
the thermometer rose to 90°, whilst the inside of the oppo- 
site thigh was only 83°; in another case it rose only 4°, but 
in every experiment the temperature was increased (Cooper's 
Leet., vol. 1, p. 22-'3). Hunter's opinion is based on opera- 
tions upon brutes. Dr. Cheyne found the heat in fever to 
rise to 109° (Prof. Bartlett on Typhoid, p. 264). Prof. Wat- 
son limits febrile heat to 107° Fah. (Leet. Pract., p. 85, 1844). 
The great influence of moderately prolonged cold upon the 
human body has been but little studied and less understood. 
Dr. Dunglison considers it as proved, that exposure to cold 
is incapable of depressing the temperature of the system low- 
er than about 15° beneath the natural standard." (Phys. vol. 
2, p. 195). When the whole body sinks to 78° or 79° death 
takes place: (ib. p. 213). M. Laurent says the same, though 
he places the vital heat unusually low in the following pas- 
sage: 
"Lorsque la soustraction de la chaleur du corps humain 
est trop brusque et trop continue, sa temperature vital habitu- 
elle, qui est de 32° C. (87.6° Fah.), descend a 26° (67.8° 
Fah). Alors se manifeste le besoin d'un sommeil invincible; 
e'est la torpeur ou 1'engourdissment, precurseur d'une mort 
produite, suivant M. Chaussat, par 1'epuisement des forces 
nerveuses, et probablement aussi par 1'act.ion direct du froid 
sur le sang, qui se coagule dans les vaisseaux."-(Diet, de la 
Conversat., vol. 12, p. 345, Paris 1834). 
Dr. Currie found the temperature of a man plunged into 
sea-water at 44° sink, in the course of a minute and a half 
after immersion, from 98° to 87°; and in other experiments 
as low as 85°, but never lower than 83°. It was always 
found, however, that in a few minutes, the heat approached 
its previous elevation. Similar experiments have been per- 
formed on other warm blooded animals. (Ibid. p. 191). 
The following experiments, made with much care and 
copied without any picking or selection, appear so far as they 
go to overthrow these conclusions. Observations more nu- 482 
Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
merous, and not confined to a single person, might be more 
satisfactory. 
I may here remark, that while sitting in a room artificially 
warmed the hand holding the'instrument was always turned 
from the fire, and rested upon a table covered with a woolen 
cloth. During the experiments the hand was never opened, 
the temperature was usually noted every minute, or every 
five minutes, though not always so mentioned in this paper, 
from a wish to be brief in details. 
Jan. 16th, 7-A.M.-Room 65V; experiments 1 hour in bed; 
crossing the thighs 97|*; perineum and scrotum 100°; pressing 
the sole of the foot against the internal maleolus 97j°; axilla 
100°; bend of the elbow 98°; lefthand 98°. Left the bed. 
put on no coat, in 30' the hand gave only 90f°. 
3i P. M. Room 68°, caloricity of the left hand, after a 
trial of 35 minutes, 98°; water at 61|° was applied repeat- 
edly to the forehead for 37 minutes; during this time the heat 
of the hand fell 8°; the person well clothed. There can be 
no doubt that here the whole system was cooled 8°; the face 
became pale, afterwards flushed. 
Jan. 17, 6| A. M.. Bed-room 46°; left hand not covered 
by the bed-clothes, in 23 minutes gave 92°; leaving the bed, 
8 minutes, without dressing to 85°; partly dressed, 20 minutes, 
80°. In a room with a fire at 59°, in 15 minutes, 75° (here 
a slight exposure to a moderate cold caused a fall of 17°); 
went into the open air at 46°; water at 38° was applied to 
the face and both arms at intervals for 11 minutes, the hand 
fell to 72°; breakfasted 15 minutes, repeating the cold occa- 
sionally, 70°; went into the room where the fire was, as 
above, 15 minutes declined to 67°! At 10 A. M., the left 
hand was 96°, clothed: room 66°, good fire. Rolled up the 
cuff, applied water at about 44° to the wrist with a sponge, 
&c., at intervals; in 40 minutes the heat fell to 80°, in 15 
minutes to 74|°; cold now applied to the forehead only, 10 
minutes, 70£°; cold now withdrawn; sat by the fire 15 min- Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Coloricity. 
483 
utes; hand 68°; 15 minutes 69°; 10 minutes 81°; 15 min- 
utes 93°; 30 minutes 98°; 10 minutes 99°. 
The refrigeration progressed as long as the experiments 
lasted: in the first case depressing the temperature, in 1 hour 
24 minutes, from 92 to 67°, a difference of 25°; in the last 
case, occupying nearly the same length of time, the fall was 
28°; in 15 minutes after the withdrawal of the cold, aided 
by a comfortable fire, the hand was still 3° below the point 
of departure, but in 40 minutes more rose 3° above it. 
Jan. 18th, noon. Room coat off, caloricity of the 
left hand 97i°; about 12 lbs. of water at 50° used for a foot 
bath; 5 minutes while undressing the hand fell to 95°; 5 min- 
utes while using the foot bath, to 902°; 15 minutes while ex- 
posed to the air, to 89°; 5 minutes without coat, to 88°. 
Jan. 19th, 6 A. M. Room 54|°; caloricity of the left hand 
in bed 100°; arose, dressed partially, in 25 minutes, 902°; 
applied water at 53° to the forehead, face, and opposite hand 
at intervals; sitting in a room at 62| deg., the back towards 
the fire, in 48 minutes the'heat fell to 83 deg., and remained 
stationary 10 minutes, as long as the experiment lasted. No 
cold was applied to the left arm, which was clothed as usual, 
except the coat. The refrigeration was through the right 
hand and forehead, the instrument in the left hand, as in all 
the other experiments, was not changed after leaving bed. 
9 P. M. Room 70 deg.; caloricity of the left hand 99 
deg.; removed coat, vest, cravat, opened shirt collar, and 
in 15 minutes the heat fell to 94 deg. 
Jan. 20th, 6 A. M. Bed-room 63i deg.; in bed, left hand 
uncovered 15 minutes 99 deg.;, axilla 10 minutes 99| deg.; 
inner and lower portion of the thighs 10 minutes 98| deg.; 
groin, flexing the thigh upon the abdomen 5 minutes 101 deg.; 
popliteal region 5 minutes nearly 99 deg. Dressed, except 
coat and vest, 10 minutes 92 deg.; about 4 lbs. water at 63| 
deg., applied at intervals with the right hand to the forehead 
and face, in 40 minutes the left hand declined to 83j deg., 
and was still falling when the experiment ended. 
12 M. The caloricity of my left hand being 99 deg., the Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Coloricity. 
484 
clothes on, sitting by a good fire, the room 68 deg., the right 
hand and wrist were immersed in one gallon of water at 63J 
deg.; in 25 minutes the left hand fell to 97 deg.; in 15 min- 
utes to 93 deg.; (cold being also applied to the forehead sev- 
eral times). The right hand now wiped dry received the 
thermometer at 93 deg.; in 10 minutes the mercury stood at 
73 deg.; in 5 minutes rose to 74 deg. 
Jan. 21st, 5 A. M. 'Room 68°; in bed, hand exposed, 10 
minutes and 5 minutes, each observation gave 98|°; popliteal 
region 8 minutes 100 deg.; perineum 5 minutes 101 deg.; groin 
5 minutes 100 deg.; elbow, at the fold, 5 minutes 99 deg.; 
left hand 5 minutes 100 deg.; instep and sole 99 deg.; by in- 
creasing the bed-clothes the left hand gave in 8 minutes 101 
deg. Left the bed and sponged at intervals with 1 lb. water 
at 65| deg., in 15 minutes the hand was 97 deg.; friction 
with a towel 5 minutes, 95 deg.; 5 minutes while dressing 
94s- deg.; 5 minutes 93 deg.; 10 minutes stationary and then 
to rise. In 15 minutes the axilla was 99 dem 
Jan. 22d, 6 A. M. Room 68 deg.; perineum, groin, popli- 
teal, and hand, each, 100 deg.; thighs, instep and sole 99 deg.; 
while dressing, and after, the left hand fell in 15 minutes to 
97| deg.; in 27 minutes (occasionally applying water at 68 
deg. to the forehead) it gave 92 deg. 
10 A. M. Air 68 deg.; sat in the open air of a porch af- 
ter walking several squares, the weather growing warmer 1 
deg. per hour, in 65 minutes the hand fell to 78 deg,, and was 
still declining, being then 22 deg. less than when in bed 5 
hours before. 
It will be seen by some of the preceding experiments, 
that cold air and cold water even partially applied, in rooms 
with and without fire, cause a reduction of the temperature 
sometimes 33 or 34 deg., below the natural heat; this de- 
pressed temperature so far from disappearing in a few min- 
utes continues for an indefinite period, probably involving 
the whole system as well as the accessible points upon the 
surface, as appears, perhaps, analogically during refrigeration 
from applying cold to the forehead, opposite arm, and to the Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
485 
feet while the rest of the body may be clothed comfortably. 
I felt no injurious effects from these refrigerations except, per- 
haps, a boil just above the knee. As hydropathists ascribe 
these affections, or at least eruptions, to cold applications, 
and as I have been entirely exempt from them heretofore, I 
think it proper to mention this fact. There can be no doubt 
that even a moderate cold steadily applied will produce a 
great and long-continued reduction of temperature, extend- 
ing to the whole system, a fact, the pathological and thera- 
peutic value of which, must sooner or later be appreciated 
in calorific excitements, irritations, congestions, and inflamma- 
tions. 
Magendie, with but little charity to vitalists, refers animal 
heat wholly to chemical changes in respiration, and says 
"that the blood in the living vessels is, in truth, almost as di- 
rectly influenced by the temperature of the atmosphere as 
the mercury in the barometer."* (Leet, on the blood, p. 46). 
Without by any means adopting this conclusion to the fullest 
extent,! am inclined to think that the calorific oscillations of the 
body follow those of the surrounding media to a much great- 
er extent than is generally supposed, and that in morbid aug- 
mentations of heat anti-calorifics may be so applied as to re- 
frigerate with more or less accuracy and advantage down to 
the healthy standard. 
And though our facts are too scanty and inaccurate to en- 
able us to generalize with advantage, in all cases, yet I am 
far from thinking that the student of medicine will regard 
this subject as one merely speculative and devoid of useful 
applications. 
Dr. Johnson (Afed. Chir. Rev., p. 479, Oct., 1843), says, "It 
is now generally admitted that the temperature of animals de- 
rives its origin from a living principle; this principle, Prof. C. 
*Chaussier considers caloricity to be "a primary vital property, ceasing at 
death-augmenting with every cause that excites the vital activity." (Dungli- 
son's Phys., v. 2, p. 201. Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
486 
Caldwell (N. York Jour. Med., Jan. 1844, p. 51), "believes 
to be a specific kind of imponderable matter, as indispensable 
to vitality as carbon is to carbonic acid. The materia vitae 
is an essential element of living organized matter." It will 
be as difficult to account for the increase of heat after death 
upon this principle, as upon those principles advanced by 
Liebig, as respiration, digestion, &c. 
Dr. Double, of France, and some others, say that the ani- 
mal heat is depressed below the ordinary standard during 
sleep and in the morning. This latter so far as I have ex- 
perimented is not accurate, unless by morning we understand 
the next hour after rising from bed. A priori, it might be 
expected that caloricity would accumulate in the body while 
lying enveloped in non-conductors, as blankets, and the mo- 
tionless air, almost hermetically sealed by the bed-cloths du- 
ring a winter's night. And such appears to be the fact. I 
have already offered several observations, much abridged, 
made in bed with both Fahrenheit's and Reaumur's thermom- 
eters, showing the caloricity of the body under these circum- 
stances. It appears from these experiments and the follow- 
ing that in 9 observations, made in bed, upon the hand, last- 
ing a quarter of an hour each, on 11 consecutive days in Jan- 
uary, the minimum was 92 deg., the maximum 100 deg., the 
average about 98* deg., very nearly the same as the elbow, 
ankle, sole, instep, and thighs, the axilla being about 1 deg. 
higher; the perineal, scrotal, inguinal, and popliteal regions, 
from 99 to 101 deg.,-averaging, in 10 observations, 100| 
deg. 
Jan. 23d, 6* A. M. Room 74 deg., in bed; hand, instep, 
sole, ankle, lower portion of the thighs, axillary, inguinal, pe- 
rineal and popliteal regions, each 100 deg. At 9 2 A. M., 
room 71 deg.: hand in 20 minutes gave 88* deg.; at 11 A. 
M., room, 72 deg., hand in 21 minutes gave 95 deg.; at 9 
P. M., room 75 deg., the hand in 15 minutes gave 99 deg.; the 
groin and axilla the same. 
Jan. 24th, 7 A. M. Room 72 deg.; in bed, hand and axilla 
100 deg.; groin, instep, thighs, elbow, and tongue, 98 deg. Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
487 
each. At 9 A. M., room 74 deg.; hand in 15 minutes 96 deg. 
The maximum temperature of the room in which the experi- 
ments took place was 77 deg., the minimum 46 deg., the aver- 
age about 65 deg. 
I now offer a table, choosing 10 consecutive days, in which 
the records have been kept with the greatest accuracy, and 
with the fewest interruptions, showing the caloricity of the 
hand in the morning from 7 to 10; at noon, at 3 and at 9 P. 
M., with the temperature of the room, and that of the open 
air. During this period few if any appreciable circumstances, 
excepting those which are recorded, intervened to modify the 
results compared with each other. The weather was very 
cloudy, and the rains frequent and copious. The minimum 
temperature was 39| deg., the maximum 79| deg, the winds 
variable, with occasional thunder; fogs prevailed to an un- 
usual extent. 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE CALORICITY OF THE HAND. 
o cn 
25 
to 
00-4 
January. 
-1 <! 
Ob CTi O CJ 
Temperature 
o' 
to £3 
p p CO p W w 
r- 
of the room. 
o 
co co co 00 
CO 
Caloricity of the 
tO ft- 
IO 
Hi. >UC to 
hand in 15 min. 
Temperature 
M- 
CO 
£ 
i? 
co 
of the room. 
co co 
O 
co co 
5 
Caloricitv of the 
it 
-I CO 
o 
51" 
° 
hand in 15 min. 
1 
-4 
Temperature 
UH 
.^,9'.- 
of the room. 
CO CO 
o 
O 
co co co 
Caloricity of the 
--1 co 
O 
O o CT5 
hand in 15 min. 
-7 <J 
Temperature 
M tO 
o 
of the room. 
co 
CO o 
CO o 
co 
co 
co co co co 
CO CD co -Q 
cHuh*H»P- 
Caloricity of the 
hand in 15 min. 
''janr 
n 
c£ E. 
iT 
loudj 
p pj O pj 
5 E3 crq B 
o 
0*5 
,1 
M 
p »■* 
S' S 
7 - 
i ° 
3 r 
I 
p 
p 
p 
AlTHE 
X 9- 
w » 
S' 
2° 
c r* 
£= 
*■ 
b 
O 
p 
O 
M 
s 
c 
t 
? 
This table affords upon analysis the following results: 
Average of the morning, from 7 to 10 o'clock, - 90.15° 
Average at noon,97.71° 
Average at 3 P. M.,97.15° 
Average at 9 P. M., 99.00° 
Average at 6 A. M., in bed, - - . . 98.45° 
I copy the following data on the caloricity of the hand at 
about 9 P. M., commencing at the termination of the preced- 488 
Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity 
ing table, making a series of nineteen consecutive days, afford- 
ing an average with a fraction (f°) over the preceding, but 
confirming the general result in a striking manner. Each ob- 
servation lasted at least a quarter of an hour, and was noted 
with all possible exactitude. 
It will be seen that the average caloricity of the hand in a 
room with a good fire at 9 P. M., does not differ materially 
from the average in bed, in the morning at 6 A. M. in a room 
without fire, and that in a few hours after leaving bed the 
temperature declines about 9°, but rises again by noon to 
97.71°, rather declining than augmenting at 3 P. M.; at 9 
P. M. it rises about 2° more. 
9 P. 
ML 
WEATHER, &c. 
Jan., 1844. 
Hand-fif- 
teen minutes. 
Temperature 
of the room. 
17 
981 
Clear. 
18 
971 
68 
Clear. 
19 
981 
70 
Light clouds. 
20 
98 
72s 
Fog-rain. 
21* 
100 
721 
Fogs-clouds-mosquitoes. 
22 
99 
741 
Cloudy-mosquitoes. 
23 
99 
751 
Clouds-mosquitoes. 
24 
96i 
741 
Thin clouds-mosquitoes. 
CALORICITY OF THE HAND AT ABOUT NINE P. M. 
These imperfect statistics of caloricity constitute only a 
* In New Orleans the minimum temperature of the 21st January was 504", 
the maximum 754", while at Montpelier, Vermont, the mercury fell, according to 
the Montpelier Watchman, to 40" below zero: a difference of more than 90 
degrees. On the 6th January the mercury, near Montreal, was at 40" below 
zero, while at 8 o'clock at night the mercury was 94" higher at New Orleans. 
On the 12th January the mercury was reported to be 12" below 0 at Quebec, 
while at New Orleans, at 8 P. M., the mercury stood at 72£ above 0, or 844" higher Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
489 
part of my observations on this subject; they have been made 
on but a single person, and are, I admit, too scanty for safe 
conclusions. My observations upon morbid and post mortem 
caloricity are of a very different character, occupying several 
months of arduous investigation on many different persons, 
living and dead. 
The hard working student will soon find after bidding adieu 
to the lecture rooms of his teachers that much is unknown, 
much unsettled, upon many of the simplest points in physiolo- 
gy. Even the temperature of the hand is involved in discre- 
pancies so numerous as to show the imperfections of that 
science. 
Much attention has been bestowed upon Meteorology, par- 
ticularly by the learned Dr. Samuel Forry, whose work stands 
in our country without a rival. Let the same pains be taken 
to ascertain the laws of human temperature, healthy and mor- 
bid, at different periods of the seasons and of the day-and in dif- 
ferent maladies in all their stages when modified and unmodi- 
fied by remedial agents, and in all accessible points, and the 
greatest advantages will probably result.* 
This imperfection in the physiology and pathology of ani- 
mal caloricity, is, unfortunately for the student, but too well 
expressed in the therapeutics of heat, as laid down by the 
most eminent authors. Cruveilhier gives enemata in cholera, 
at 36Q,Reau.=l 13Q Fah., (Anat. Path. livr. XIV.) In the Diet, 
des Scien. Med., under the head Da bain d'eau tres chaude it 
is said: il est tres chaud vers 34° 7?., nearly 109° F. Under 
the same terms, Prof. Hatin, of Paris, (Med.Operat. p. 73,) 
gives the hot bath at the temperature of 36° to 40° R.,-113° 
* The difficulty, perhaps impossibility, of tracing any absolute connexion be- 
tween the meteorology of the seasons and their epidemics, is set forth in the 
following passage: 
"Pendant 10 annees consecutives le Rapporteur de la Commission a 
publie trimestre par trimestre; 1'histoire des maladies regnantes 4 Paris rap- 
prochees des caracteres des saisons dominantes: il doit a la verite de declarer 
que si ce travail ne lui a que peu serie pour remonter aux causes des grandes 
epedemies, il lui a ete tres utile pour le divageur dans ses exercises cliniques.- 
Comptcs Rendus, tome. tyim.p. 515 ; 1839 q. Rapport par M. M. Arago et Double. 490 
Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
to 122° Fah. Yet, Laurent, (Diet, de la conversat. v. 12, 
p. 345, Paris, 1834,) says that a temperature of 104° Fah. 
can be supported only a few moments without danger: UL'ap- 
plication des corps solides chauffes jusqu'-40° cent. (104° F.) 
ne peut etre supportee quelques instants sans danger." Dr. J. 
Bell fixes the hot bath at and above 98°; at that point the 
line of agreeable warmth is past. (Baths and Min. Wat.) De 
La Roche could not support above ten minutes and a half a 
vapor bath, which at first at 96.5° Fah., rose in eight minutes 
to 124.45°, and afterwards fell one degree. Berger was oblig- 
ed in 12| minutes to come out of a vapor bath, the tempera- 
ture of which had risen from 106.25° Fah. to 128.75°. He 
was weak, and tottered on his legs, and was affected with 
vertigo. 
In water a still lower temperature becomes insupportable. 
Lemonnier, being at Bareges, plunged into the hottest spring, 
which was 113° Fah. He could not remain in it above eight 
minutes. Violent agitation and giddiness forced him out. 
(Trans. Jour. Med., v. 9, p. 547). Let these facts be borne 
in mind. We shall see in the thigh a i>ost-mortem heat which 
is here pronounced insupportable even for a few minutes. 
Copeland (Diet Med., art. Cold), says, that man cannot exist 
for any considerable time in a mean range of temperature 
above that of his own body. In no part of the globe is the 
mean annual range of atmospheric heat within twelve degrees 
so great as that of the living frame. 
Morbid caloricity it would seem may augment to such a 
degree as to cause the combustion of the body. This curious, 
and apparently well authenticated malady is, in some cases, 
not suddenly fatal, being local or partial in its action, as was 
the case with the Priest Bertholi, who lingered to the fourth 
day. A considerable number of fatal cases of spontaneous 
combustion have been reported by the physicians and by the 
judicial officers of different nations, a?s may be seen in the pe- 
riodicals and medical encyclopedias. Prof. Short, of Louis- 
ville, Ky., reported a case a few years since in the Trans. 
Med. Jour., v. 3, p. 142. Partington, in his British Ency., Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
491 
(London, 1835), v. 1, p. 346 et. seq., reports many: among 
them, the cases of the Countess Cornelia Bandini, Grace Pitt, 
Mary Clues, Jean Millet's wife, Mary Jauflret, widow of 
Nicholas Gravier, Mdlle Thaurs, a woman in Massachusetts, 
(16th March, 1802), a case from the Transac. Soc. Copenha- 
gen, with other circumstantial histories. 
If we admit the possibility of open combustion in the liv- 
ing body, can we hesitate to allow the possibility of an im- 
perfect, smouldering, semi-combustion, or, at the least, a mor- 
bid heat, in the tissues during intense fevers? Magendie, not 
less distinguished for his physiological researches, than for his 
bitter denunciations of pathology, "that science which," ac- 
cording to him, "does not yet even exist," asks with apparent 
triumph, "what sense, in truth, is there in applying the word in- 
flammation to our organs? Do our tissues really take fire? 
I confess I know of no example of such a phenomenon. 
When the blood rushes to a part in abundance, a certain rise 
of temperature, no doubt, occasionally follows; but it only 
reaches but a few degrees above the normal standard of the 
organ and never exceeds that of the blood in the left ven- 
tricle." (Leet, on the Blood, p. 32.) Now, as he refers heat 
solely to the chemistry of respiration which raises the blood 
only 1°, the left ventricle is therefore only 1° hotter than 
other parts. (Vide Phys). 
At one moment Magendie declares that the temperature of 
the body depends upon the passage of the blood through the 
tissues, and at the next, he ascribes the heat in inflammation 
"to the accumulation or arrestation of the blood in the part!" 
(p. 25). Plain contradiction! So of the lungs. They make 
the heat, and yet they make the cold too, whenever it is ne- 
cessary, as when a man enters a red-hot furnace. He ex- 
pressly says that they are "an admirable cooling apparatus," 
and yet in his Physiology he says they are "the centre from 
which animal heat is developed." The histories of morbid and 
post-mortem temperature, which will be given, will show 
whether these assertions are stronger proofs than facts them- 492 
Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
selves, even though unconnected with theoretical fortifi 
cations. 
It is proper to state that no special theory of fever will be 
attempted in this paper. It is not pretended that mere heat 
is alone sufficient to explain all the phenomena of fever. 
With respect to post-mortem fever, which is perhaps nearly 
uniform, to a greater or less degree, let it be observed that 
circumstances, not necessary to mention, often prevented me 
from ascertaining the febrile caloricity until after it had de- 
clined more or less, so that the body had already felt the in- 
fluence of the surrounding media. The morbid caloric may 
in some instances flow from the centre outwardly for a time 
more or less prolonged. But when it begins to leave the 
limbs it falls with great rapidity under the dominion of the 
atmosphere: the centre then becomes comparatively much the 
hottest, until near the commencement of putrefaction, at 
which time the entire body nearly coincides with the atmos- 
pheric temperature. In rare cases, where much blood has 
been lost, especially by the lancet, the heat augments but lit- 
tle, scarcely as high as in health, though probably higher than 
it was some hours before death; in these cases, muscular con- 
tractility is usually feeble and transient; rigidity is tardy and 
imperfect. 
The doctrine of a post-mostem fever, or morbid heat, if 
sustained by facts, deserves neither sarcasm nor ridicule. Will 
any one pretend that respiration, or arterial circulation, or the 
nervous system acts with increased power after death? Yet, 
theorists ascribe animal heat to one or all of them with the 
confidence of a mathematical truth, in defiance of the antago- 
nism of facts. The admirable Bichat says: "To derive gen- 
eral principles from facts-who are we, that we should turn 
away from this path?" 
Broussais, who upbraids the ancients for "considering fever 
as an unnatural heat, (Path., p. 110), seems to ascribe to its 
physiological action an omnipotent power. Caloric is the first 
and most important of all stimulants; if it ceases to animate 
the economy, others lose their influence over it; all the pre- Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
493 
servation, recuperative, and sanative phenomena cease. Ca- 
loric brings into play the unknown power, which constructs 
the organs." (Prop, ii, iv, v, Path). Now, in his first patho- 
logical proposition, he Says, "health is the regular, disease the 
irregular exercise of the functions," and, of course, any great 
irregularity in the calorific condition must constitute disease in 
the same degree. 
Among the preceding authorities the discrepancies as to 
temperature are sufficiently discouraging, but many of them 
probably grow out of the fact that the exact modes of inves- 
tigation have not been identical. In making an experiment, 
all the modifying circumstances, as well as each step of the 
operation, ought to be attended to and made known. For 
example, let us suppose that the air is 40°; the thermom- 
eter at this temperature is taken into the hand at 109°; or, 
suppose that it is introduced into the middle of the thigh at 
113°: here the parts in contact with the thermometer are ne- 
cessarily robbed of much heat; 69° to 73° must be given to 
the instrument to be replaced, slowly, by heat conducted 
from, perhaps, the whole mass of caloric. In the experiments 
upon post-mortem caloricity, I have generally guarded against 
such errors by taking sufficient time. I may have erred occa- 
sionally by neglecting to prolong the experiment sufficiently. 
Some account of the circumstances under which this in- 
quiry upon animal temperature began may not be improper. 
Although the heat of the dead often struck me as remarkable, 
vet I did not suppose that it increased after death, until, during 
the last year, I determined to turn my attention to the follow- 
ing question: What are the most certain signs of death? 
Among many things, heat presented itself as one element 
worthy of investigation. This inquiry became the more in- 
teresting in consequence of certain acts of the Board of Ad- 
ministrators of the Charity Hospital in the summer of the 
year 1843. Upon this subject a little digression may be pro- 
per. Among other things, a rule passed forbidding post-mor- 
tem examinations, until six hours after death. The Board 
consisted of distinguished citizens; fortunately for the cause 494 
Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
of science, they did not enforce this rule; neither the faculty 
nor the public seemed to think it necessary. The New Orleans 
public, ever charitable to the living, cares not to introduce, or 
patronise, absurd prejudices about the dead,-prejudices 
which elsewhere have trammeled the progress of the healing 
art. Common sense, in spite of any speculation, finds no dif- 
ficulty in deciding that the fever subject, after undergoing the 
fatal symptoms, under the eyes of the physician and others- 
after ceasing to breathe, &c., is dead. Thought, sensation, 
pulsation, locomotion, every possible relation to the external 
universe, and existence itself, are no more. In swooning, as- 
phyxia, hanging, drowning, epilepsy, &c., doubts may sometimes 
exist. If the living body be committed wholly to the charge 
of the physician, why not the dead? 
The surgeon, who mutilates for the mere eclat incidental to 
operations,-the physician, who needlessly subjects his pa- 
tient to hazardous medications,-the pathologist, who would 
proceed to post-mortem with even a doubt upon 
his mind whether the subject was dead, in the common accep- 
tation of the term, would deserve the utmost execration of 
mankind. 
The frightful stories of Bruhier, (Diet. des Scien. Med. t. 
25, p. 174,) seem to have long terrified both the public and 
the faculty in the old world. He reports 180 cases of per- 
sons reputed dead, who were not so: 60 interred alive; 40 
opened before death; 53 returned spontaneously to life, after 
having been laid out in their winding sheets; 72 reported dead, 
were alive. These, and similar statements, have caused some 
benevolent individuals to leave annual prizes to those who 
should discover the most certain signs of death, with a view 
to prevent premature interments. 
The more this topic has been elaborated by learned men, 
the less unanimity appears to have resulted. The unlearned 
nurse readily recognizes the physiognomy, and other signs of 
death, though perhaps unable to describe them with certainty. 
No one, it is believed, after apparent death from fever, in 
New Orleans, has ever been known to return to life: this, Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
495 
practically speaking, is death. The French Academy records 
a marvellous case, noticed by Baron Larrey,in which a French 
officer, (M. Morel,) then living, was taken for dead in two in- 
stances, and buried as such. " M. Julia Fontenelle transmet 
une observation tiree du cinquieme volume de la clinique de 
M. Larrey et la quelle il result qu un officier franqais (M. Mo- 
rel) encore vivant a. etc doux fois enterre comrne tel. (Com. 
Ren. T. 2, p. 257, Mai 1836.) The Academy occupies itself 
much upon this subject: it has been appointed to award 
(decerner) prizes in relation to its elucidation, but appears 
to incline to the test by putrefaction! 
M. Donne, in a letter to the Academy upon the signs of 
death drawn from the alterations of the globules of the blood, 
remarks, that " tout en reconnaisant, que le signe le plus cer- 
tain de la mort, le seul que soit a 1'abri de toute erreur dans 
les cas douteux, est la putrefaction." (Com. Rend. T. 6. 
p. 345.) 
Some of these savans, not satisfied with a delay of twenty- 
four hours as fixed by the French Code, wish the period pro- 
tracted: "M. de Briere ecrit relativement aux malheurs qui 
peuvent resulter des inhumations trop precipitees. Il desizerait 
que le delai de quarante-huit heures, dit-il, a lieu en An- 
gleterre et Baviere, fut adopte en France." (Ibid.) 
Lastly, a medical writer, in Paris, during the year 1843, in- 
sists on putrefaction,-greenness of the tissues, &c., as the 
only certain tests, requiring about three days! But in the 
steady cold of winter, this might require as many weeks be- 
fore greenness, &c., would appear. 
If putrefaction be regarded as the only certain test of death, 
then, adieu to all confidence in post mortem examinations, as 
the means of ascertaining morbid appearances and of guiding 
to sound pathological deductions. Magendie, who sometimes 
is quite skeptical, says, " I set but little value on minute exami- 
nation of the traces left by disease upon organs, though that 
pursuit has been pompously styled pathological anatomy: 
are you not in truth convinced that the lesions found at our 
autopsies are frequently produced after death, and that conse- 496 
Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Cdloricity. 
quently the plan hitherto followed in such inquiries is falla- 
cious, and can only lead to vague information and error?" 
(Blood, p. 276.) 
The February No. of this Journal, for 1843, containing a 
part of my observations upon the fallacious results incidental 
to late dissections, was sent to one of the most illustrious pa- 
thologists' in Europe, Louis, of Paris. In a letter which I had 
the honor to receive from him since, he speaks upon this sub- 
ject in the most decided language. This testimony is not only 
of the greatest weight in itself, but displays a candor, a love 
of truth, which an author wholly influenced by sordid self- 
interest would neither feel nor exhibit, since some of M. L.'s 
own distinguished works have been based on dissections 
more or less tardy. Dr. Louis says: 
"Ausujetde L'anatomie pathologique,vous avez fait sansdoute 
ce qu aucun medicin na fait jusqu ici; une il ua ete donne a 
personne a part quelques circonstances infiniment rares, de faire 
des autopsies quelques minutes seulement apres la mort, quand 
la roideur cadaverique (une des signes le plus certains de la 
mort) n'existe pas encore a beaucoup par; vous avez vous pu 
voir ce que peu de personnes ont vu, constater des lesions 
susceptibles de promptement; et si vous avez pu 
receuiliir tres en detail, et jusqu'a la derniere heure des mala- 
des, les symptomes qu ils eprouves vous feriez une chose tres 
utile a la science de publien ce que vous avez vu."* 
From the above extract, it would seem that Dr. Louis re- 
gards cadaveric rigidity (rigor mortis') as one of the most cer- 
tain signs of death. 
At the present time, the medical faculty in New Orleans ap- 
pear to be unanimous in the opinion that late dissections must 
* "As to the subject of pathological anatomy, you have done, without 
doubt, that which no other physician has done till now; for it has been given 
to no person, to make post mortem examinations a few minutes only after death, 
when cadaveric rigidity (one of the most certain signs of death,) exists as yet to 
no great degree. You have been able to see that which few persons have seen,- 
to establish lesions susceptible of changing quickly; and, if you have been able to 
collect in detail, and until the last hour of the patients, the symptoms which they 
have experienced, you will do a thing very useful to science to publish what you 
have seen." Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
497 
lead to results more or less fallacious, and, some go so far as 
to declare that a dissection, after even six hours, is more likely 
to mislead than to instruct. New Orleans, happily, is free 
from those prejudices, which in some parts of the Union pun- 
ish as a felony the taking of the dead for examination-a pun- 
ishment seldom inflicted for stabbing, shooting, or .otherwise 
slaying the living, in these days of legal ingenuity. At one of 
the first dissections (after the act of the board), where the 
body had been kept six hours, the medical gentlemen aban- 
doned the examination, unfinished, on account of the obscurity 
cast on it by post-mortem discolorations; a learned anatomist, 
now no more, was present, and expressed the same views- 
this was Dr. Harlan. A few weeks after, in the midst* of the 
labors incidental to the epidemic yellow fever, he fell suddenly 
with apoplectic symptoms, and so little did he fear premature 
dissection, that he requested (as I was informed) that his body 
should be examined in ten minutes after death. 
It was, therefore, during my researches upon the signs of 
death, (the results of which I may publish hereafter), that 1 
accidentally ascertained the existence of a post-mortem fe- 
ver, or caloricity. I then turned my attention to the calorific 
history of the living body, covering the whole ground from 
the second hour of the fever to the period of putrefaction. 
The symptoms and treatment of those who recovered, and of 
those who died, including post-mortem examinations, I will be 
obliged to omit and to restrict myself to temperature alone, 
hoping that these observations, however imperfect, will con- 
tribute something to fill up an evident gap in febrile pathology. 
Whether pathology shall settle down into solidism, or run into 
fluidism-whether it shall take the symptomatic or idiopathic, 
the chemical, mechanical, or modified vital form, one thing is 
certain, the positive alone should guide us. Caloric is the 
great motor of the universe. Its pathological relations, com- 
binations, and deteriorations, solar, terrestrial and animal, 
ought to be studied in preference to hypothetical agents, un- 
known gases, or vital metaphysics. It is no aggression-no 
violation of the sanctuary of vitalism, to take from it any of 498 
Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
its supposed holy vessels, which may of right be claimed by 
the law's of simple physics or chemistry. It is often a clear 
gain to the cause of truth when any supposed vital law is 
shown to be identical with those of mechanics, hydrostatics, 
pneumatics, electricity, caloric, or chemistry. 
As to the supposed good effects of febrile heat, compared 
with coolness of the skin, noticed by Dr. Chyene, (Bartlett's 
Typ. Fever, p. 264-'5), the circumstances, the stage of the 
disease, &c., arc not given with sufficient particularity. 
Heat, like the blood, may have a congestive character; the skin 
may be colder than natural, while the heat is centralized even 
in algid cholera, in which the skin is icy, while the patient 
complains of the most intense burning heat inwardly. Prof. 
Cruveilhier found, when about to make his autopsies, in chol- 
era subjects, that they were hotter (how much he does not 
say) than during life-"Froid beaucoup moins prononce que 
pendant la vie." (Anat. Path. Livr. xiv. p. 26.) As illustra- 
tive of this subject, and the origin of this investigation as 
mentioned above, I will here recount a part of my observa- 
tions, in the first case in which I took the post-mortem tem- 
perature. The heat, in this case, was less than in many 
others-the history is less perfect-no positive thermometri- 
cal data had been recorded before death. The skin, during 
the twp last days of the malady, wTas so remarkably cold, 
that some medical gentlemen regarded the case as congestive, 
rather than yellow' fever; but the history, as well as the au- 
topsy, fully satisfied me that it was the latter. The stomach 
contained 12 ounces of black vomit. 
A native of the United States, born about the 40th degree 
N. latitude, aged 25, late a steamboat man in southern Louis- 
iana, resident in New Orleans two weeks; died of yellow fe- 
ver Aug. 7th, 11 A. M., 1843, after an illness of four days and 
a half. 
Air of the dead house 83°. Experiments began 20 minutes 
after death: axilla, 5' 108°; under the tongue, 5' 103°; epi- 
gastrium, 5' 108°; 5' same; perineum simply closing the 
limbs, 10' 104°; centre of the thigh, 10' 109°; tongue, 10' Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
499 
100°; epigastrium, 5' 109°; axilla, 5' 104°; thigh, 5', old inci- 
sion which had been made too large, admitting the air freely, 
107°; 3 successive obs. in different parts of the abdominal 
cavity, each lasting 5', gave nearly 107°. Experiments now 
ceased 1 hour and 35 minutes; resumed 3 hours and 20 min- 
utes after death. Dead house, 81°; epigast., 10' 104°; outer 
side of the lungs, 10' 103°; base of the right lung, 5' 104°; 
between the liver and diaphragm, 4 hours after death, 104°. 
Temperature of the brain not taken. The body rested on a 
stone floor, which wras placed directly on the ground-no 
cover but a linen sheet, which was removed when the experi- 
ments began; the room much ventilated-brisk winds, with 
heavy showers of rain, during the observations. 
In this case the coolness so remarkable to the touch disap- 
peared in 15 minutes after death. The axilla at 25', and the 
epigastrium at 40', both gave 108°, while the thigh, 1 hour af- 
ter death, gave 109°; in 1 houi' 15 minutes the epigastrium at- 
tained the same elevation as the thigh. This, the culminating 
era of the morbid caloricity, wTas followed by a gradual but 
slow declination, differing much from simple atmospheric re- 
frigeration, inasmuch as the thigh and the epigastrium, and 
other abdominal regions, after trials for twenty-five minutes, 
gave exactly the same temperature. Refrigeration from the 
surrounding media progresses from the circumference to the 
centre, until the putrefactive period, when the air, the sur- 
face, and the centres, coincide very nearly. The body ex- 
posed to a hurried, brisk wind, at 81°, for a period of four 
hours, gave in the centres, 104°-that is, 4 or 5° beyond the 
healthy heat. 
I have already copied from my MS. volumes, 162 calorific 
histories, which, with a few more made during the present 
winter, (1843-'4), will complete the series. I own I am not 
without some fears of making a premature publication, as this 
inquiry has occupied me for a much shorter period than any 
other great branch of febrile pathology. And, if one so hum- 
ble might be allowed to apply to his own case, the words of 
so distinguished a man as Sir Benj. Brodie, I would say, "that 500 
Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
one principal result of my labors has been to convince me 
that life is not long enough for these difficult researches; that 
the utmost which can be accomplished by the zeal and indus- 
try of an individual is to make such progress in the study of 
pathology as may enable those who may come after him to 
carry their inquiries farther; and that the expectations of 
any one who aims at higher objects than these must terminate 
in disappointment." (Am. Jour., Oct. 1843.) 
Few, except those who have gone over the same ground, can 
imagine the labor and irksomeness of these dismal researches 
along the frontiers of death. Silent, alone, sitting for hours 
on a coffin, among dead bodies bearing on their saddened 
faces the impress of the last agony, watching the wanings of 
a lingering vitality and the steady advances of the great anni- 
hilator, decomposition, with scalpel, pencil, book, and ther- 
mometer, like Sterne's prisoner in the dungeon, who etched 
down with a nail his diurnal history-these are circumstances 
that fiction cannot heighten; pursuits that honest Charon, the 
ferryman to ghosts, upon the dark and polluted Styx, would 
scarcely undertake. The fabled shades, Sorrow, Fear, Sleep. 
Night, Sickness, and Death, and the Valley of tears, might 
very well be located in and round about hospitals and dead 
houses.* The moral associations they fix upon the minds of 
their inmates are often unfavorable in a medical point of view. 
'Eugene Sue, the celebrated novelist, in The Mysteries of Paris, has drawn 
a dark, but too true a picture, of the moral, mental, and medical influences 
which reign in the wards of a crowded hospital. The shame, disgust, and incon- 
venience, (especially to the female patient), incidental to interrogations and ex- 
aminations, repeated at pleasure, by physicians and students, before company, 
by day and by night, have not been at all exaggerated: to these have been added, 
the fear of dissection after death,-a fear not the less real because it is absurd: 
"Ah! it is horrible! said Clemence, shuddering with affright. One must come 
here [to the hospital] to know that there are, for the poor, misery and alarms 
even beyond the tomb." Sue makes his scientific Dr .Griffon too fond of experi- 
ments upon the poor,-too brutal in his speeches before his patients, upon the 
fine morbid specimens that their bodies will afford, and, in directing his student 
to cut the initials of his name upon the corpse of the actress in the presence of 
the sick, preparatory to dissection. Dowler's Experiments on Febrile Caloricity. 
501 
Romance, imagination, reason, nay, science itself, "serve but 
to light the troubled way," giving a greater force to the bitter 
realities, always transpiring before our eyes, in these institu- 
tions, and at the bed side. However wise it may be in the 
multitude to repel such ideas by gay illusions, the physician, 
from his avocations, cannot long enjoy them. He will often 
think in the following strain, with a veteran medical journal- 
ist-a passage, by the way, very much like one I have seen 
in some of Voltaire's works: "Man is the only animal in exis- 
tence who knows or even thinks he must die. This piece of 
knowledge seems to be a necessary accompaniment of Rea- 
son, and no small drawback upon the pleasures of that boasted 
gift! It is a prescience which embitters a great portion of 
the life of man! On which side does happiness predominate? 
On that of man or that of beasts? Those who have lived 
longest in this world and seen most of human nature, will 
have little hesitation in casting the balance in favor of ani- 
mals. The young and the sentimental will come to a different 
conclusion. The knowledge of literature, arts, sciences, so 
far as happiness is concerned, is rather a curse than a bless- 
ing." (Med. Chir. Rev., Jan. 1843). I make no apology for 
thus "heaving a moralizing," if not a scientific sigh, upon this 
subject-the affectation will be found on the side of levity and 
insensibility. But leaving the mental pathology, I will in the 
concluding part of this essay, confine myself to the physical, 
the positive alone. Here, if anywhere, the Genius of Pa- 
thology, like the dove which returned to the Ark, finds rest 
for the sole of her foot, and seeks among the dead that which 
may be useful to the living. 
New Orleans, March 30th, 1844. 
[to be continued.]