4 Metabolism of Healthy Man. 



Lavoisier made the earliest and most fundamental contributions to the chem- 

 istry of respiration, for although the information regarding his experiments 

 is all too meager, there is enough evidence to warrant the belief that he had a 

 wonderful comprehension of the respiratory processes, both qualitative and 

 quantitative. 1 Apparently his experimental methods were so extended as to 

 include practically all of the principles involved in the most elaborate appa- 

 ratus of the present day. Not only did he use a chamber for studying the 

 respiratory products of his subjects, but he also used special appliances attached 

 to the mouth and nose and thus gave impetus to the extended series of obser- 

 vations with both of these two general methods that have continued almost 

 without cessation since his day. 



Mouth or nose appliance and respiration-chamber methods. Of these meth- 

 ods, perhaps the simplest and most readily controlled is that, of breathing 

 through some special mouth or nose appliance. By the use of this method 

 the earlier investigators were able to determine only the carbon dioxide. Later, 

 owing to the researches of Chauveau and Tissot, 2 and Zuntz 8 and his associates, 

 the method has been developed to such a high degree of perfection as to include 

 both the determination of carbon dioxide and of oxygen. 



The use of the respiration chamber for these studies at first gave results 

 only for carbon dioxide. Extensive series of investigations were made by 

 Scharling 4 and by Andral and Gavarret. Later, Eubner 6 and his associates, 

 Atwater 7 and his associates, and Sonden and Tigerstedt 8 used the chamber 

 principle for determining carbon dioxide during long experiments. Finally, 

 Jaquet developed a chamber type of apparatus in which the oxygen could be 

 determined directly. The description of this apparatus was shortly followed 

 by a description of the respiration calorimeter formerly at Wesleyan University, 

 Middletown, Connecticut, this apparatus being devised to measure not only the 

 carbon dioxide but also the oxygen. 10 Aside from this last-mentioned apparatus, 

 no apparatus had been equipped with appliances for measuring heat, with the 

 exception of the Pashutin respiration calorimeter, elaborated and modified by 



1 For an interesting presentation of some of Lavoisier's researches in physiological 

 chemistry, including illustrations of apparatus reproduced from the original sketches 

 of Madame Lavoisier, see Edouard Grimaux, Lavoisier, 1743-1794, Paris, 1899, pp. 

 119 and 129. 



2 Chauveau and Tissot, Comptes rendus, 1899, 129, p. 249. 



3 See detailed description of the Zuntz-Geppert apparatus by Magnus-Levy: Archiv 

 f. d. ges. Physiol., 1895, 55, p. 1. 



4 Scharling, Ann. der Chem. und Pharm., 1843, 45, p. 214; also Ann. de Chim. et de 

 Phys., 1843, ser. 3, 8, p. 478. 



5 Andral and Gavarret, Ann. de Chim. et de Phys., 1843, ser. 3, 8, p. 129. 



9 Rubner, Die Gesetze des Energieverbrauchs bei der Ernahrung, Leipsic and Vi- 

 enna, 1902. 



7 Atwater and his associates, U. S. Dept. Agr., Office Expt. Stas. Buls. 44, 63, 69, 

 109, and 136, 1897-1903. 



8 Sonden and Tigerstedt, Skand. Archiv f. Physiol., 1895, 6, pp. 1-224. 

 8 Jaquet, Verhandl. Naturf. Gesellsch., Basel, 1904, 15, p. 252. 



10 Atwater and Benedict, Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication No. 42, 

 1905. 



