150 degrees F. have
been registered, yet the engineers and the stokers become habituated to
this heat and labor in it without apparent suffering. In Turkish baths,
by progressively exposing themselves to graduated temperatures, persons
have been able to endure a heat considerably above the boiling point,
though having to protect their persons from the furniture and floors
and walls of the rooms. The hot air in these rooms is intensely dry,
provoking profuse perspiration. Sir Joseph Banks remained some time in
a room the temperature of which was 211 degrees F., and his own
temperature never mounted above normal.

There have been exhibitionists who claimed particular ability to endure
intense heats without any visible disadvantage. These men are generally
styled "human salamanders," and must not be confounded with the
"fire-eaters," who, as a rule, are simply jugglers. Martinez, the
so-called "French Salamander," was born in Havana. As a baker he had
exposed himself from boyhood to very high temperatures, and he
subsequently gave public exhibitions of his extraordinary ability to
endure heat. He remained in an oven erected in the middle of the
Gardens of Tivoli for fourteen minutes when the temperature in the oven
was 338 degrees F. His pulse on entering was 76 and on coming out 130.
He often duplicated this feat before vast assemblages, though hardly
ever attaining the same degree of temperature, the thermometer
generally varying from 250 degrees F. upward. Chamouni was the
celebrated "Russian Salamander," assuming the title of "The
Incombustible." His great feat was to enter an oven with a raw leg of
mutton, not retiring until the meat was well baked. This person
eventually lost his life in the performance of this feat; his ashes
were conveyed to his native town, where a monument was erected over
them. Since the time of these two contemporaneous salamanders there
have been many others, but probably none have attained the same
notoriety.

In this connection Tillet speaks of some servant girls to a baker who
for fifteen minutes supported a temperature of 270 degrees F.; for ten
minutes, 279 degrees F.; and for several minutes, 364 degrees F., thus
surpassing Martinez. In the Glasgow Medical Journal, 1859, there is an
account of a baker's daughter who remained twelve minutes in an oven at
274 degrees F. Chantrey, the sculptor, and his workman are said to have
entered with impunity a furnace of over 320 degrees F.

In