HEAT, in Physiology, has a double meaning; being put either for that peculiar sensation which is felt on the approach of burning bodies, or for the cause of that sensation; in which last sense it is synonymous with FIRE. This mode of speaking, however, is inaccurate; and, by confounding the effect with the cause, sometimes produces obscurity: it were to be wished, therefore, that the word heat was used only to denote the effect; and fire, or some other term, to denote the cause of that effect.
The disputes which formerly were so much agitated in the learned world concerning the nature of heat,
viz. whether it consisted merely in the motion of the terrestrial particles of bodies, or in that of a subtle fluid, are now mostly ceased, and it is almost universally believed to be the effect of a fluid. See CHEMISTRY Index.
HEAT of Burning Bodies. } See COMBUSTION,
HEAT of Chemical Mixtures. } CHEMISTRY Index.
Method of Measuring HEAT. See THERMOMETER and PYROMETER, CHEMISTRY Index.