193 



that there is effected, through these organs, a real lymphatic circulation, 

 of which the object is to bring on the chyle to a higher degree of ani- 

 malization*. 



LXXXIV. Of pulmonary exhalation. It will be remembered, that one 

 of the great differences between the blood of the arteries, and that of the 

 veins, consists in the great quantity of serum found in this last. It is in 

 the lungs that the separation of this aqueous part takes place, and that 

 its proportion is reduced, whether it be, that oxygen gives albumen and 

 gelatine a greater tendency to concrete, or that the serum, formed by the 

 fixation of oxygen throughout the whole extent of the circulatory system, 

 exhales from the arteries, and thus furnishes the matter of pulmonary 

 exhalation. It is scarcely possible to admit the combination of oxygen 

 with the hydrogen of the venous blood, and that water is thus formed 

 from its elements, as happens when storms are gathering in the high 

 regions of the atmosphere. If a similar process can be carried on in the 

 lungs, without producing deflagration and the various phenomena attend- 

 ing the production of aqueous meteors, it is probable, that it furnishes 

 but a small part of the exhalation 5 and that this humour, analogous to 

 the serum of the blood, exhales, completely formed, from the arterial ca- 

 pillaries ramified in the bronchiae and the lobular tissue of the lungs. It 

 is believed, that the quantity of the pulmonary exhalation is equal to that 

 of the cutaneous exhalation (four pounds in twenty-four hours.) These 

 two secretions are supplemental to one another: when much water 

 passes off by the pulmonary exhalation, the cutaneous is less, and vice 

 versa. 



The surface, from which the pulmonary exhalation is given out, is 

 equal, if not superior in extent, to that of the skiji : exhalation and ab- 

 sorption are at once carried on from that surface, many nerves are dis- 

 tributed to it, and are slmost exposed in the tissue of the membranes 

 which are extremely thin. Are the miasmata with which the atmosphere 

 is sometimes loaded, absorbed by the lymphatics, which, it is well known, 

 have the power of taking up gaseous substances; or do they merely pro- 

 duce on the nervous and sensible membranes of the bronchiae, and of the 

 lobular tissue, the impression whence the diseases of which they are the 

 germ arise? 



A part of the caloric which is disengaged in the combinations which 

 oxygen undergoes in the lungs, is taken up in dissolving and reducing in- 

 to vapour, the pulmonary exhalation which is the more abundant, accord- 

 ing as respiration is more complete. Pulmonary exhalation should be 

 carefully distinguished from the mucous matter secreted within the bron- 

 chiae and trachea, and which is thrown up by a forcible expiration, and 

 forms the matter of what we spit. 



LXXXV. Of asjihyxia^. The term asphyxia, though merely indicating 

 a want of pulse, is applied to any kind of apparent death occasioned by 



- * The two last sentences of this paragraph are rather hypothetical. We are not suf- 

 ficiently well acquainted with the use of the bronchial glands to assign them any posi- 

 tive office in the purification of the blood, nor do we see how much could be gained by 

 the kind of circulation through these organs, supposed by our author. We have always 

 understood that the change is effected while the blood is passing through the pulmo- 

 nary arteries, whence it is returned by the pulmonary veins to the left auricle, pre- 

 pared for the support and nourishment of the body Godman. 

 f See APPEIS 7 D1X 3 Note W. 



2 B 



