A HISTORY OF METABOLISM 27 



though valves were indicated through which inspired air was received 

 from the atmosphere while the expired air was driven through a tube 

 into a bell jar under water. Nysten (Nysten, (o) 1817), working in Paris 

 in 1811, described the method by which he caused tuberculous and other 

 patients to respire through valves into a previously collapsed bag for 

 half a minute and then analyzed the expired air by a method similar to 

 that of Seguin. 



These are the known historical facts about the apparatus used in the 

 "first respiration experiments on man, but the exact details of the method 

 by which results were established and which still are the basis of metab- 

 olism studies are unknown. 



In contemplating his results Lavoisier (/) said: "This kind of obser- 

 vation suggests a comparison of forces concerning which no other report 

 exists. One can learn, for example, how many pounds of weight lifting 

 correspond to the effort of one who reads aloud or of a musician who plays 

 a musical instrument. One might even value in mechanistic terms the 

 work of a philosopher who thinks, the man of letters who writes, the 

 musician who composes. These factors, which have been considered 

 purely moral, have something of the physical and material which this 

 report allows us to compare with the activities of a man who labors with 

 his hands. It is not without justice that the French language has united 

 under the common expression work the effort of the mind with that of 

 the body, the work at the desk with the work at the shop. . . . 



Thus far we have considered respiration only as a consumption of air, the 

 same kind for the rich as for the poor, for air belongs equally to all and costs 

 nothing. The laborer who works enjoys indeed in great measure this gift of 

 nature. But now that experiment has taught us that respiration is a true process 

 of combustion which every instant consumes a portion of an individual, that this 

 combustion is greater when the circulation and respiration are accelerated and 

 is augmented in proportion to the activity of the individual life, a host of moral 

 considerations suggest themselves from these determinations of physical science. 



What fatality ordains that a poor man, who works with his arms and who 

 is forced to employ for his subsistence all the power given him by nature, con- 

 sumes more of himself than does an idler, while the latter has less need 

 of repair? Why the shocking contrast of a rich man enjoying in abundance 

 that which is not physically necessary for him and which is apparently destined 

 for the laboring man? Let us take care, however, not to calumniate nature and 

 accuse her of faults undoubtedly a part of our social institutions and perhaps 

 inseparable from them. Let us be content to bless the philosophy and humanity 

 which unite to promote wise institutions which tend to bring about equality of 

 fortune, to increase the price of labor, to assure to it just recompense, to offer 

 to all classes of society and especially to the poor more pleasures and greater 

 happiness. Let us trust, however, that the enthusiasm and exaggeration which 

 so readily seize men united in large assemblies, that the human passions which 

 sway the multitude, often against their own interest, and sweep the sage and the 

 philosopher like other men into their whirlpool, do not reverse an outlook with 

 such beautiful vistas and do not destroy the hope of the country. . . . 



