^f. Perckat on the Effel^s of Famine, ^c. 50^ 



i^rength now failed, he, loft his fight entirely, 

 fell upon his knees,- and foon afterwards upon 

 the floor. His refpiratiori continued to be efFeft- 

 cd with difficulty and pain, as if he had a weight 

 upon his breaft; and he did not perfedtly recover 

 before the fucceeding day. * 



In this inftanee, fome degree af palfy was pro- 

 bably induced, in the nerves of the lungs, by the 

 fudden adlion of concentrated inflammable air^ 

 conveyed into the veficles, forcibly emptied of 

 atmofpheric air. For in- ordinary refpiration-, 

 about thirty-five cubic inches of air are inhafed 

 and exhaled J but in a violent expiration, the 

 air difcharged may amount to fixty cubic inches, f 

 In the cafe of Travis, it will be remembered, 

 that the air was fufficiently falubrious, when he 

 went down into the coal-pit; that by ftagnation 

 It became gradually noxious; and that his ner- 

 vous fyftem muft therefore have been progref- 

 fively habituated to its influence. This is con- 

 formable to the obfcrvations of my friend Dr. 

 Prieftlcy, who difcovered, that if a moufe can 

 bear the firft fliock of being put into a veffeJ, 

 filled with artificial gas, or if the gas be in- 

 creafed by degrees, it will live, a confiderable 

 time, in a fituation which would prove inftantly 

 fatal to other mice. And he frequently noticed, 

 that when a number of mice had been confined, 



• Philofophical Tranfadions, vol. LXIX, p. 346. 

 t Ibid. p. 349. 



