440 JAMES WATT. 



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. 

 It 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 lesion 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 haemoptysis 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 daughter, 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. 



