A closer analysis of the heat production of nerve

Abstract

The heat production of nerve is believed to occur in two phases, “initial” and “recovery”; the former is presumably an accompaniment of the physical and chemical changes which take place during the propagation of the nerve restored to its initial state. It is not easy to separate the one from the other ; indeed, during the earlier part of this research it was realised that in a strict sense, and on the evidence available, there might really be no “initial” heat at all. This is made clear by the following discussion.