LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC. 299 



thinking mind." The great difficulty, however, suggested to our minds 

 was, how to steer clear of those technical explanations which are necessary 

 to unfold the history of the animal economy, without trenching on the 

 dehcacy and fastidiousness of the auditors, one half of which, possibly, 

 were females — but we are bound to say that Mr. Sheward very dexterously 

 contrived to throw becoming drapery over this department of his scientific 

 research, and adapted it, as far as possible, to the chaste ears of the 

 sensitive and the scrupulous. The lecturer allows he might have chosen 

 a subject much more poetical and imaginative, one which would have 

 gratified the external senses, while it added little to the treasures of the 

 mind ; yet he felt convinced that by stripping this of its professional 

 detail, it might be rendered amusing as well as instructive, and as such 

 not unworthy of general notice. 



There can be no doubt of the fulfilment of his wishes — he did strip it 

 of much of its professional detail — but some downcast looks from a few 

 of the blue-stocking sisterhood convinced us that he had not pruned quite 

 enough from the " professional detail." We saw even some medical men 

 stare most outrageously while the learned lecturer was giving such a 

 minute detail of the function of digestion — and a near neighbour asked 

 us if we did not think that such information were better confined to the 

 schools of medicine. In truth, although unwilling to check the progress 

 of science, we begin to think that some very peculiar subjects, such as 

 ** the digestive and other organs, midwifery, &c. &c." had better be 

 confined to the lecture rooms of the hospitals. 



These observations have no reference to the lecturer individually. We 

 have already said that he treated his subject with much delicacy — we 

 may add, too, with considerable skill and judgment— and we heard many 

 professional men affirm that he said all which could be said on the 

 subject before a mixed audience. In confirmation of this opinion, we 

 give the following digest of a part of his observations on the organs of 

 respiration : — 



** Many and important are the effects which arise from respiration, but there is 

 none of more consequence than that which it produces on the circulating blood. 

 The necessity of air for the support of animal life could hardly escape observation 

 in any age ; but the ancients, to whom the constitution of the atmosphere, and the 

 alterations which take place when it passes through the lungs, were alike unknown, 

 could have no correct idea as to the end it answers in the animal economy, and there 

 is no extravagance of imagination in which they did not indulge. It would be 

 foreign to ray purpose to detail opinions which have lost the stamp of novelty, and 

 been long since refuted ; I shall, therefore, confine myself to the relation of such as 

 are entertained at the present time. Atmospheric air, or that subtle fluid by which 

 we are constantly surrounded, and without which death w^ould immediately ensue, 

 is composed of three gases, combined in different proportions, and endowed with 

 distinct properties. Each 100 parts of common air contains 77 of azote, a term 

 which signifies * incapable of sustaining life,' 22 of oxygen, which may be con- 

 sidered the most useful, and is by some called * vital air,* and the remaining part 

 of carbonic acid. We will suppose, then, that a person makes a full inspiration, by 

 which the air cells become filled, and the chest expanded, the air inhaled comes in 

 contact with the blood minutely circulated as I have before explained to you, which, 

 absorbing part of the oxygen contained in the inspired air, at the same time throws 

 off carbonic acid, which it had acquired during the circulation through the body. 

 This process takes place in every species of respiration, whether animal or vegetable. 

 It would hardly interest you if I were to enter into a minute detail of the quality 

 and quantity of the air taken in, and thrown out of, the lungs at each inspiration 

 and expiration : but I cannot avoid remarking that the cause of death when 

 charcoal is left burning in a closed room ; the sense of oppression on the chest felt 

 when many persons have been crowded together in a small space ; breathing the 

 same atmosphere ; and even the popular opinion that flowers placed in a bed-room 

 are unwholesome, may all be traced to the same cause. During the burning of the 

 charcoal, the breathing of animals or vegetables (for the latter imbibe oxygen, and 



