INTERNAL RESPIRATION. 781 



Alexander Schmidt considered that in the blood an active oxidation 

 took place, for he concluded from his experiments that readily oxidisable 

 substances and active oxygen or ozone existed in that fluid, and further 

 that the oxidation in the body increased with the velocity of the blood. 

 The haemoglobin was looked upon as the regulator of the consumption 

 of oxygen, and this erroneous view, propounded by Lothar Mayer, is still 

 accepted by some medical writers. 



As in all tissues, so in the blood there is a certain amount of 

 oxidation, but the evidence about to be given will show that it is small 

 and unimportant when compared with that taking place in muscles and 

 glands. The blood is not the cause of the oxidation of the body, the 

 cause is in the living cells of the tissues. 1 



The chief evidence is as follows : A frog can live in an atmosphere 

 of nitrogen for seventeen hours, and during this time gives oft' carbon 

 dioxide, in fact during the first five hours it discharges as much as it would 

 under normal conditions. 2 A frog will live a day or two in oxygen after 

 its blood has been entirely replaced by normal saline solution, 3 and when 

 in this condition its intake of oxygen and output of carbon dioxide are 

 equal to that of a normal frog. 4 The experiments of Finkler 5 show 

 that the consumption of oxygen is independent, naturally within 

 certain limits, of the velocity of the circulating blood. Further, the 

 respiratory exchange of rabbits, deprived by bleeding of one-half of their 

 haemoglobin, is equal to that of the same animals before the loss of 

 blood ; 6 patients with simple anaemia or with severe leukaemia absorb 

 as much oxygen and excrete as much carbon dioxide as healthy men at 

 rest and upon a similar diet. 7 



It was long ago shown by Spallanzani that living tissues removed 

 from a recently killed animal took up oxygen and discharged carbon 

 dioxide, and that this exchange was greater in most tissues than it was in 

 blood. Similar experiments have been made by others. 8 



Paul Bert placed tissues from a recently killed dog in air for 

 twenty-four hours, the temperature varying from about to 10, and 

 obtained the following results : 



100 grms. of muscle absorbed 50'8 c.c. of oxygen, and discharged 56 - 8 c.c. of carbon dioxide, 



brain ,, 45'8 42'8 ,, 



kidney ,, 37'0 ,, 15-6 



spleen ,, 27'3 ,, 15'4 ,, 



testis ,, 18-3 ,, 27'5 

 broken \ 



,, bone & [ ,, 17'2 ,, 8'1 

 marrow J 



1 Pfliiger, Arch.f. d. ges. PhysioL, Bonn, 1875, Bd. x. S. 251 ; 1878, Bd. xviii. S. 247 ; 

 1893, Bd. liv. S. 333. 



2 Pfliiger, ibid., 1875, Bd. x. S. 251. 



3 Cohnheim, Virchow's Archiv, Bd. xlv. 



4 Oertmann, Arch. f. d. ges. PhysioL, Bonn, 1877, Bd. xv. S. 381. 



5 Ibid., 1875, Bd. x. S. 368. 



(i Pembrey and Gtirber, Journ. PhysioL, Cambridge and London, 1894, vol. xv. p. 449. 



7 Hannover, " De quantitate relativa et absoluta acidi carbonici ab homine sano et 

 n?groto exhalati"; Abstract given by Moller, Ztschr. f. BioL, Miinchen, 1878, Bd. xiv. 

 S. 546 ; Pettenkofer and Voit, Ztschr. f. BioL, Miinchen, 1869, Bd. v. S. 319. 



8 Spallanzani, "Mem. sur la respiration," trad. parSenebier, 1803, p. 86 ; G. Liebig, Arch, 

 f. Anat., PhysioL u. ivissensch, Med., 1850, Bd. xvii. S. 393 ; Matteucci, Compt. rend. Acad. 

 d. sc., Paris, 1856, tome xlii. p. 648 ; Ann. de chim. et phys.. Se"r. 3, Paris, tome xlvii. p. 129 ; 

 Valentin, Arch. f. physiol. Heilk., Stuttgart, 1855, Bd. xiv. S. 431 ; 1857, N.F. Bd. i. S. 

 285 ; Bernard, " Lemons sur les proprietes physiol. des liquides," Paris, 1859, tome i. p. 403 ; 

 Paul Bert, " Lecons sur la physiologie comparee de la respiration," Paris, 1870, p. 46; 

 Regnard, "Rech. exper. sur les combustions respiratoires, " Paris, 1879, p. 23. 



