440. JAMES WATT. eg 
tion at Clifton, near Bristol, where the therapeutic proper- 
ties of all the gases were to be carefully studied. The 
Pneumatic Institution had for some time the advantage 
of being under the direction of the young Humphry 
Davy, who was then entering on his scientific career. 
Tt could boast also of having James Watt as one of its 
founders. The celebrated engineer did more: he imag- 
ined, described and executed, in his manufactory at Soho, 
the apparatus which generated the gases ; and he admin- 
istered it to the patients. I have found several editions 
of his Memoir treating of these researches* under the 
several dates of 1794, 1795, 1796. 
Our associate’s attention was attracted to this subject, 
in consequence of his being cruelly deprived of several 
friends and relations before the usual age, by diseases of 
the chest. It was chiefly the léston of the respiratory 
organs that Watt thought might be treated by the aid of 
the specific properties of the new gases. He also ex- 
pected some advantage from the action of the impalpable 
molecules, of iron, and of zinc, which hydrogen carries 
along with it when prepared in a certain way. I will 
finally add, that among the numerous medical notes pub- 
lished by Dr. Beddoes, and announcing results more or 
less decisive, there is one signed John Carmichael, rela- 
tive to the radical cure of hemoptysis in a servant, 
Richard Newberry, who was made at certain times to 
breathe a mixture of steam and carbonic acid by Watt 
himself. Although I am quite aware of my utter incom- 
* It was especially the illness of his danghter, and the delicate 
health of his younger son, that led Watt to interest himself so deeply 
on this head. His work was entitled a Description of a Pneumatic 
Apparatus, with Directions for procuring the Factitious Airs.—Trans- 
lator. 
