52 On the Respiration of Atmospheric Air. 



to make new efforts to remove those errors, and to discover 

 also their sources. The researches of the celebrated Davy 

 have happily succeeded for this end ; and bis '* Rci^iearches 

 Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concerning Nitrous 

 Oxide, &c. &c." form, in this point of view, a new epoch 

 in the chemical doctrine of respiration. The celebrated edi- 

 tors of the Bihliotheque Britannique have shown that they 

 appreciated the value of these researches by giving an extract 

 from them, very minute and instructive, in their excellent 

 journal*; and the manner in which Bcrthollct has given us 

 another extract in the Annoles de Chimie ought to fix the 

 attention of all chemists on the work of Mr. Davy. The 

 differences that were found in the results of preceding ex- 

 periments on the quantity of carbonic acid produced in the 

 act of respiration, were less important, and might depend 

 entirely on the difference of vital powers in different indi- 

 viduals who have been inade subjects of these experiments j; 

 and in this point of view, a revision of these experiments 

 was of less consequence. But the part which azotic gas 

 performs in the act of respiration had been too little appre- 

 ciated by chemists. It had been common to attribute to it 

 a purely passive part. Goodwyn alone believed that he had 

 observed a very considerable absorption of azotic gas j but 

 his experiments had not been made with all due exactness, 

 and were too much in contradiction with the experiments of 

 Lavoisier, Seguin, Abernethy, Fothergill, Menzies, &c., to 

 command attention. The experiments made on the slow 

 combustion of phosphorus, which did not succeed in pure 

 oxygen gas, and which is so much favoured by the concur- 

 rence of the azotic gas of the atmospheric air, might serve 

 to guide us in determining the service which this great quan- 

 tity of azote renders in respiration. And a notice, unfortu- 

 nately too short, of the results of the last experiments of 

 the impnortal Lavoisier upon respiration, supports this view 

 of the subject. According to his results, a greater quantity 

 of oxygen gas was decomposed in the pame time by the re- 

 spiration of riie atmospheric air than by the respiration of 



••■ l"iJc torn. xis. XX. xxi. in the (lepanmnrir of Arts and Sciences. 



oxVffen 



