If a man could be surrounded with frozen mercury he would die instantaneously, as from shock, by the immediate extraction of his heat.  But in ordinary cases, and under ordinary circumstances, the mere rapid extraction of waste heat is not sufficient to account for all the mischief produced by a low temperature; for by artificial warmth and non-conducting garments, we counteract the influence, and that, too, in a manner which proves pretty successful.  We may, therefore, leave this element of extraction of heat as a most important, but not as the sole, agent of evil.

SUPPRESSED OXIDATION.

The second element is the effect on the process of oxidation of blood under the influence of cold.  We all are aware that if a portion of dead animal or vegetable matter be placed at a low temperature, it keeps for a considerable time; and we have evidence of dead animals which, clothed in thick ribbed ice, have been retained from putrefaction for centuries.  Hence we say that cold is an antiseptic as alcohol is, and chloroform, and ammonia, and other similar bodies.  Cold is an antiseptic then, but why?  Because it prevents, even in the presence of a ferment, the union of oxygen gas with combustible matter.  The molecules of oxygen, in order that they shall combine, and in their combination evolve heat, require to be distributed, and to be distributed by the form of motion known as heat; deprive them of this activity, and they come into communion with themselves, are attracted to each other, and lose to the extent of this attraction their power of combining with the molecules of other bodies for which they have an affinity.  In an analogous, but more obvious way, we may see the same effect of motion in the microscopic examination of blood.  In the blood, while it is circulating briskly in its vessels, there are distributed through it, without contact with each other, the millions of oxygen carriers called blood corpuscles.  In the circulation in the free channels of the body, the arteries and veins, it is motion that keeps these corpuscles apart; we draw a drop of blood and let it come to rest on the microscope glass, and as the motion ceases the separated corpuscles run together, and adhere so firmly that we cannot easily separate them without their disintegration.  If we were able to drive them in this state round the body, through the vessels, they would not combine readily with the tissues; they have, in fact, forfeited the condition necessary for such combination.  So with the oxygen they carry; when its invisible molecules are deprived of the force called heat, which is motion, they do not readily combine with new matter.  But perfect combination of oxygen and carbon in the blood is essential to every act of life.  In the constant clash of molecule of oxygen with molecule of carbon in the blood lies the mainspring of all animal motion; the motion of the heart itself is secondary to that.  Destroy that union, however slightly, and the balance is lost, and the animal body is, in a plain word, ill.