ON THE USE OF AKTIFICIAL EESPIRATION 



AND TRANSFUSION AS A MEANS. OF 

 PRESERVING LIFE. 



(Reprinted from tlie British Medical Journal, May 17, 1873.) 



In his admirable Lessons in Physiology, Huxley says that " the 

 brain, the lungs, and the heart, have been fancifully termed the 

 tripod of life ; but, in ultimate analysis, life has but two legs to 

 stand upon, the lungs and the heart, for death through the 

 brain is always the effect of the secondary action of the injury 

 to that organ upon the lungs or the heart." This conclusion is 

 founded on the experiments of many observers, among the most 

 interesting of which are those of the Abbe Fontana and 

 Legallois.* The former found that the brain v/as not necessary 

 to life ; for he could cut off the heads of rabbits and guinea-pigs, 

 and yet keep their bodies alive by connecting a pair of bellows 

 with the trachea, and keeping up artificial respiration. As he 

 himself says, an animal can live quite well without a head : 

 artificial respiration and the circulation of the humours in the 

 various parts are quite sufficient. The headless trunks evi- 

 denced their vitality by displaying sensitiveness to impressions, 

 and executing what the Abbe considered to be voluntary 

 movements, but which we would now term simply reflex 

 actions. Legallois went even further than Fontana; for, not 

 content with cutting off the rabbit's head, he tied the aorta and 

 vena cava, and then cut away the whole of the posterior part of 

 the body, leaving only the headless thorax. This fragment of 

 the body, mutilated as it was, still remained alive; the fore 

 paws showed sensibility when irritated, and the thorax twisted 

 when the skin over it was pinched, or more distinctly still if 



* Fontana, Traite sur le venin de la vipere, sur les poisons Americains, sur le 

 laurier cerise, et sur quelques autres poisons vegetavx, Florence, 1781, tome ], 

 page 317 ; Legallois, Experiences sur le principe de la vie, Paris, 1830, tome 1, 

 p 130. 



