in regard to Respiration. ^57 



The practice which I flatter myself I have acquired in expe- 

 rimental matters has proved to me that, instead of pursuing 

 a direct course, as the greater number do, it is often of ad- 

 vantage to follow a cross road where no one has before passed, 

 (ix even which no one has ever thought of entering. This is 

 what I have chosen to do in my researches. 



In recounting the results of my experiments, I shall not 

 give you the specific names of the objects of them ; I con- 

 fine myself here to generalities alone. I shall only observe, 

 that I employed the eudiometer of that celebrated chemist 

 Giobert to ascertain the chemical alterations of the air : I 

 found it the most convenient, and at the same time the best 

 fitted to my chemico-phyi:iological researches. 



I inclosed in a given measure of common air different 

 kinds of worms. It was by this class of animals that I be- 

 gan my researches. I thus learned that those which had 

 organs for respiration, as well as those destitute of them, 

 absorbed all the oxygen of the air, or at least as nmch as 

 was absorbed by the phosphorus of Kunckel. I observed 

 that in the latter animals the organ of the skin supplied the 

 place of lungs. This novelty induced me to search for an- 

 other. I was desirous to know whether this organ ceases to 

 absorb oxygen when the worms cease to live ; or whether it 

 then still retains this property. To resolve this problem I 

 confined some of these animals, when dead, in close vessels, 

 placing them in the same circumstances under which they 

 were during life : the oxygen was in the same manner en- 

 tirely absorbed. 



Though these animals began to give manifest signs of 

 putrefaction, or putrid fermentation, as appeared by the 

 disgusting odour they emitted, by their change of colour, 

 and the softening of their parts, 1 put them again into con- 

 fined air. The fermentation always went on increasing, 

 and the absorbing force was not checked. Having shut up 

 these substances several times in close vessels, I ascertain- 

 ed, by analysing the inclosed air, that the destruction of the 

 oxygen gas was completely and constantly effected by these 

 putrefied matters, from the commencement of their putre- 

 faction until they had attained to the utmost term of it; 

 that is to say, until it was finished, or until they were re- 

 duced to a state of almost complete decomposition. 



It is well known how much power heat and water acting 

 together have to macerate flesh : this may be easily perceiv- 

 ed by ebullition. I tried the latter method also to discover 

 whether this process would take from them or lessen their 

 faculty of absorbing oxygen ; but it was preserved in its full 



Vol. XVIII. No. 71. K vigour. 



