550 VIEWS OF MULLER. 



from them, are actually warmer than other parts 

 of the body. And as the fact has been called in 

 question by other physiologists, I have several 

 times repeated his experiments, during the last 

 and present winter, on sheep and oxen ; the 

 result of which has been, that in every trial, 

 the temperature of the lungs and left side of the 

 heart, were from 2 to 3 higher than that of the 

 stomach, liver, and brain, or the blood of the 

 vena cava and jugular veins. 



Miiller adds, that the object of respiration is 

 evidently the absorption of oxygen into the blood, 

 which conveys that gas as a stimulus to the dif- 

 ferent organs of the body ; and secondly, the 

 removal from the blood of the carbonic acid 

 which is formed in the capillaries (p. 341). But 

 that oxygen does not excite the heart to contract, 

 the stomach to digest, the nerves to feel, the 

 brain to think, and the various organs to per- 

 form their respective functions, would appear 

 from the experiments of Bichat, who found that 

 when injected into the jugular veins of a dog, 

 death speedily ensued ; and it is known that 

 farriers are in the habit of killing horses no 

 longer fit for service, by injecting air into the 

 veins. Nysten also found that when oxygen 

 was introduced into the venous blood of animals, 

 no carbonic acid was evolved, although it ac- 

 quired the scarlet hue of arterial blood. And 

 that atmospheric oxygen is not essential to the 



