vn] of the Seventeenth Century. 181 



not unreservedly accepted, that the whole of the essential 

 business of respiration is carried on in the lungs, that the 

 movements of the chest are useful only so far as they bring about 

 the changes, the alternate expansion and collapse of the lungs. 



In the second place, and this was really the important part 

 of the experiment, he shewed that the animal could almost 

 equally well be kept alive without any movement of the lung. 

 He kept the lung motionless but thoroughly distended by 

 maintaining a powerful blast with the bellows, the air driven in 

 escaping continually through minute holes pricked in the lung. 

 This shewed that the mere movement of the lungs in breathing 

 which had of old been thought to be the essential factor in 

 respiration was an incidental and not a necessary feature of the 

 business. The essential feature was a supply of fresh air 

 adequate to keep up the resulting change in the blood. The 

 qualities, whatever they might be, by assuming which blood 

 passing through the lungs became arterial and thus fit to 

 nourish the body were imparted to the blood not by movement 

 but by the mere exposure of the blood to air, that is to fresh air. 

 The concussions which it had been supposed by some were given 

 to the column of blood by the movements of breathing, had 

 nothing to do with the matter, nor indeed had movement any 

 real share in the business. The secret of the change lay in the 

 mere exposure of the blood to fresh air, to air made fresh, in 

 natural breathing, by the bellows-like action of the chest. And 

 Hooke at the close of the experiment asked the pertinent 

 question " whether suffering the (venous) blood to circulate 

 " through a vessel so that it may be openly exposed to the fresh 

 " air may not suffice (instead of lungs and breathing) for the life 

 " of the animal ? " 



The next step was taken by Richard Lower. I have 

 already referred to this singularly able man, the henchman 

 of the fashionable Willis, whose false fame in large measure 

 rested on Lower's careful, unacknowledged work. 



Born in Cornwall in 1631, educated at Westminster School 

 in London and afterwards at Oxford, he stayed in the latter 

 city for some years, while Willis was Professor. 



In 1665 he created quite an excitement by his experiments 



