Sect. II.] Plwsiologi). 585 



improvements in tliat science which the eighteentfi 

 oentnry can boast. lie died in the year 1777, .just 

 about the time when a new and unexpected light 

 began to l)e shed upon the functions of respiration 

 and digestion. 



The oflicc of the Luugs^'\\\\\c\\ is now of all the 

 animal functions tlie best understood and the most 

 susceptible of scientific illustration, was unknown 

 to Haller. lie 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 contemporary physiologists on this sub- 

 ject, should have acquiesced in this conchision, is 

 indeed matter of surprise ; but at the same time it 

 serves to fix tlie source, and to enhance the value 

 of this great discovery. 



To modern cliemistry the praise of unfolding the 

 mystery of respiration is certainly due. The esta- 

 blishment of this truth alone is almost sufficient to 

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

 siology. And if no other benefit than this had 

 arisen from all the brilliant discoveries which che- 

 mistry offers to the world, it would have sufficed 

 to rescue that science from neglect, and to assign 

 it an elevated rank among the objects of human 

 knowledge. 



It is offen asserted, that much of the true office 

 of the lungs was known to the physiologists of tlie 

 seventeenth century. Even from much more an- 

 cient writers expressions sometimes escape which 

 show a tendency to just views of the sul)jt^ct; as, for 

 example, when air received in respiration is sup- 

 posed to 7)SiQX(ii\\Q pabulum 'dUy spiritus alimejitum, 



