VOL. XXIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. 073 



not only good against shortness of breath, but will also preserve the lungs 

 from cold stinking mist, and pestilential airs. The best balsam for shortness of 

 breath, is the balsam of Peru, which I never saw, neither did I intend to make 

 the abovementioned instrument a vehicle for balsams ; for I freely own, I have 

 no skill in balsams, of gums, or herbs, only this I have often experienced, that 

 stinking smells are prejudicial to my lungs.* 



In order to make the glass tube, fig. 17, as useful as the other, fig. 18, I 

 prepared such another instrument as is represented, fig. IQ, abcdep, longer 

 than that which is represented by yza, on this account, viz. that if we be 

 inclined to put more balsams or juices into the tube, this long pipe might be 

 thrust up higher into the water. 



Now if we consider the structure of our bodies, as far as they are known to 

 us, we may firmly conclude that no part of us is exposed to so many evils as 

 the lungs ; for how easily may they be hurt if we do but go into the cold air, 

 which engenders and causes us to discharge phlegm, to cough and spit : and 

 how easily may the globules of blood in the fine vessels of the lungs be coagu- 

 lated by the cold. 



In order to get further light into these matters, I took the smallest of the 

 lungs of two several sheep, that I might view those parts with the microscope ; 

 and I was amazed to discover that the air vessels were filled with pus or matter, 

 even at the extremity or smallest part of the lungs, A butcher coming to view 

 the lungs, he felt them in several places, and showed me some hard parts, 

 about the length and breadth of two fingers, and told me that the sheep had 

 caught cold, which had occasioned that disease of its lungs ; and the same 

 thing was attested by several other butchers : I asked them whether the sheep 

 would not have died of that disease, but was answered, that those hard places 

 often disappear again. I could not discover the least pus or matter in the 

 air vessels of the lungs of two other sheep, which were of an agreeable colour, 

 and like the other. Having viewed the outside of the lung^of a sheep that 

 had not been distempered, it .seemed that a great many small transparent glo- 

 bules lay under the membrane ; but when I separated the membrane from the 

 liver, those transparent globules appeared to be nothing else but small particles 

 of air pressed together into different and irregular figures ; and those globules 

 seem to lie out of the air vessels. 



* Mr. Leuwenhoeck's idea of a direct application of balsamic and other medicinal substances to 

 the interior of the lungs, has been acted upon by some modern physicians in this and other countries, 

 they having attempted to cure phthisis pulmonalis and other disorders of the lungs, by causing the 

 patients to inhale certain gases and aethereal vapours. This is what is termed the pneumatic mode 

 of treatment. 



VOL. IV. 4 R 



