180 The English School [lect. 



brought about by his air-pump, and much sooner in a more 

 complete one, flame was extinguished and life soon came to an 

 end ; the candle went out and the mouse or the sparrow died. 



This experiment, which is referred to in the quotation from 

 Borelli given above, must be regarded as the fundamental ex- 

 periment in the physiology of respiration. It shewed not only 

 that the thing called air, and not merely the movement of the 

 chest in breathing, was essential to the due effect of breathing, 

 but also that the change whatever it might be which was 

 effected by breathing was identical with that which was going 

 on in the burning of a candle. 



The next step was taken by Robert Hooke. This man, 

 of singular ingenuity, born in 1685 and dying in 1702, held for 

 many years, from 1664 until his death, the office of curator of 

 experiments to the newly founded Royal Society, having been 

 some time previously assistant to Boyle. He was one of the 

 earliest and most zealous users of the newly invented micro- 

 scope, and in his Micrographia, published by the Royal Society 

 in 1667, records his numerous "Observations made on Minute 

 Bodies of very varied kinds by Magnifying Glasses." 



As Curator to the Royal Society it was his duty to perform 

 experiments before the Fellows at their meetings, and these 

 experiments, such was the versatile ability of the Curator, were 

 very diverse in kind, physical, chemical, and physiological. 



At their meeting of Oct. 24, 1667, he delighted the Fellows 

 of the Society with an experiment on artificial respiration, an 

 account of which is given in no. 28 of the Philosophical 

 Transactions. The experiment of artificial respiration had 

 often been done before. Vesalius tells us how he used to per- 

 form it, and points out how the beat of the heart and arteries 

 grew faint and almost ceased when the action of the bellows 

 was stopped, and how it revived again with great vigour so soon 

 as inflation was begun again. But no one had drawn from the 

 experiment the important conclusion which Hooke drew. 



In the first place having w r idely opened the thorax of a dog, 

 he shewed that the animal could be kept alive by artificial 

 respiration in absence of all movements of the chest wall. This 

 proved, and the point had been previously doubtful, or at least 



