126 ANALYTIC SECT. XVI. 
asphixia. As this patient was quite free from his 
complaint in winter, he was advised to quit the 
heated atmosphere of his own house, and to 
remain a few days on board a ship, anchored in a 
bay, much exposed to the cold sea-breezes. In 
five days, the patient was quite recovered. Many 
practitioners in such a case, would prefer extrac- 
tion of blood to forcing it upon the diseased 
organs, by reduction of temperature. 
ccxcix. While the expansibility of the lungs is 
unimpaired, they fill completely the cavity of the 
thorax; it is destroyed at death; and as the lungs 
consequently shrink in bulk, the diaphragm is 
forced upwards by the pressure of the atmosphere 
on the parietes of the abdomen. Bichat attributed 
this state of the diaphragm to the cooling of the 
air contained in the lungs after death; but this 
inference should, I apprehend, necessarily imply 
an interruption of communication between the 
atmosphere and the air-cells of the lungs. Any 
trifling diminution of the air by cooling, must 
have its place instantly occupied by the atmo- 
spheric air entering by the usual passage of the 
trachea. 
ccc. It would appear, from Bichat’s work on 
life and death, that he had, on several occasions, 
found the air-cells contracted to such a degree, 
that a vacuum was formed, after death, between 
7 
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