for restoring the Action of the Lungs. 181 
Considerable service to the cause must accrue from agitating 
this important topic, which has too long slept in inglorious re- 
pose. It may lead to an improvement or still greater simplifica- 
tion of the mechanism I have advocated. The ‘ bellows” but 
ill indeed fulfills its purpose, and on a futuré occasion I shall 
adduce such considerations and reasons as may prove it so, and 
thus have to refer to some experiments of my own, which may 
be at once interesting and useful. 
The following is a copy of the first official reply I received from 
the Secretary of the Royal Humane Society, dated 10th of De- 
cember last : 
‘Your polite communication and apparatus were laid before 
the Monthly Committee, who have instructed me to lay it before 
the Medical Committee for their opinion, and in the mean time 
to convey their best thanks to you for the interest you have taken 
in the important cause of suspended animation,” &c. 
This is so far well: the other communication from the Royal 
Humane Society, dated 2d instant, is more equivocal, and less 
flattering to hopes founded on such disinterested motives as are 
mine : 
‘< T have the honour to inform you, by the instructions of the 
Medical Committee, that I laid your apparatus before them for 
their opinion; and that, having duly considered the same—It 
was resolved, ‘ That the form of the bellows used by the Society 
was preferable to Mr. Murray’s apparatus, in the opinion of the 
Committee, as an instrument to be generally recommended for 
inflation.’—There are two things very important in all apparatus 
of the kind, to be generally recommended by the Society, viz. 
simplicity and cheapness. The first, that there may be as little 
obstacle as possible, in a moment which is generally that of con- 
fusion and trepidation ; and the latter, that the funds of the So- 
ciety may be adequate to the greatest possible extension of its 
means of doing good.” he Secretary is pleased thus to con- 
tinue: “1 think your apparatus very ingenious, and very well 
calculated to make experiments on animals relative to the sub- 
ject of resuscitation ; it admits of variety, and may lead to some 
valuable facts; and, in the hands of a person accustomed to its 
use, it may be applied readily to cases of suspended animation in 
the human subject,” &c. 
Now, if 1 am to understand that the only objections to its ge- 
neral adoption are the cost and complexity of the mechanism, 
I engage to: prove that in both these particulars the advantage 
rests with my apparatus. As to price, if 1 am not misinformed, 
that now recommended would be a fraction only of the cost of 
the other “ used by the Society;” and as to the question of its 
com- 
