SCIENCE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY 



uralist, which in due time were to stamp him as the 

 successor of Linna3us, were as yet only fairly begun. 



In the field of physiology, on the other hand, two 

 most important works were fairly consummated in this 

 epoch the long-standing problems of digestion and 

 respiration were solved, almost coincidently. Two very 

 distinguished physiologists share the main honors of dis- 

 covery in regard to the function of digestion the Abbe 

 Spallanzani, of the University of Pa via, Italy, and John 

 Hunter, of England. Working independently, these inves- 

 tigators showed at about the same time that digestion is 

 primarily a chemical rather than a mechanical process. 

 It is a curious commentary on the crude notions of me- 

 chanics of previous generations that it should have been 

 necessary to prove by experiment that the thin, almost 

 membranous stomach of a mammal has not the power to 

 pulverize, by mere attrition, the foods that are taken into 

 it. However, the proof was now for the first time forth- 

 coming, and the question of the general character of the 

 function of digestion was forever set at rest. 



To clear up the mysteries of respiration was a task that 

 fell to the lot of chemistry. The solution of the problem 

 followed almost as a matter of course upon the advances 

 of that science in the latter part of the century. Hitherto 

 no one since Mayow, of the previous century, whose flash 

 of insight had been strangely overlooked and forgotten, 

 had even vaguely surmised the true function of the lungs. 

 The great Boerhaave had supposed that respiration is 

 chiefly important as an aid to the circulation of the 

 blood ; his great pupil, Haller, had believed to the day of 

 his death in 1777 that the main purpose of the function 

 is to form the voice. No genius could hope to fathom 

 the mystery of the lungs so long as air was supposed to 



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