Medicine, 225 



The office of the Lungs, which is now of all the 

 animal functions the best understood and the most 

 susceptible of scientific illustration, was unknown 

 to Haller. He supposed that the principal ob- 

 ject of respiration was to form the voice. That 

 such a man, possessed of all the knowledge of pre- 

 ceding and cotemporary physiologists on this sub- 

 ject, should have acquiesced in this conclusion, is 

 indeed matter of surprize ; but at the same time it 

 serves to fix the source, and to enhance the value of 

 this great discovery. 



To modern chemistry the praise of unfolding the 

 mystery of respiration is certainly due. The estab- 

 lishment of this truth alone is almost sufficient to 

 subvert the old and to erect a new system of physi- 

 ology . And if no other benefit than this had arisen 

 from all the brilliant discoveries which chemistry 

 offers to the world, it would have sufficed to rescue 

 that science from neglect, and to assign it an ele- 

 vated rank among the objects of human know- 

 ledge. 



It is often asserted that much of the true office 

 of the lungs was known to the physiologists of the 

 seventeenth century. Even from much more an- 

 cient writers expressions sometimes escape which 

 show a tendency to just views of the subject; as for 

 example, when air received in respiration is sup- 

 posed to afford the pabulum vitce, sphntus alimen- 

 turn, &c. But in the century just mentioned a 

 much nearer approximation to the truth was un- 

 doubtedly made. Verheyen observed that those 

 animals which respire most have the warmest 

 blood."" Lower demonstrated that the blood re- 

 ceives a new and a brighter colour in passing 

 through the lungs." Verheyen and Borelli both 



V Tract. Be usu Resplratioms, 

 u Ibid. 



a G 



