1. Man and his environment

1.1 Thermal adjustments of the human body to its environment

Man is a homeotherm. He maintains a constant internal temperature whatever his environment, independently of his own heat production. This guarantees the integrity of the body's vital functions.

To maintain homeothermy, we must have equality between the creation of heat inside the body and exchanges with the environment.

This heat is mainly due to food oxidation, possibly supplemented by external inputs. It is also (to a lesser extent) influenced by the conductance coefficients of the various tissues traversed and by local blood flow [1] .

The enthalpy balance of the body can be expressed...