37 3 Dr. iNGENHousz’s Account of a 
tained as will ferve to cure feveral difeafes which refift 
the power of all other remedies, and fo prolong, as it 
were, human life. We may expect, with fome degree of 
confidence, that this new element, when it fhall be ufed 
for the benefit of refpiration, will be found more fit than 
the belt common air to free our body from that quantity 
of phlogifton or inflammable principle which feems to 
exift fometimes in too great a quantity in the mafs of 
our blood; or from which it feems fometimes, as it were, 
to be let loofe in too great abundance, producing, per- 
haps, in confequence fevers and other fymptoms, the 
caufes of which have not yet been clearly elucidated by 
the belt medical writers. 
This dephlogifticated air, free from the inflammable 
particles with which the bell common air is always in- 
fected, will probably be found capable of abforbing a 
greater quantity of thofe phlogiific particles with which 
the air coming from our lungs is always found to be 
pregnant, and thus of ventilating, as it were, much more 
expeditioufly the mafs of our blood of that which a con- 
ft ant exertion of the organs of refpiration is not always 
able to free it from in a fufficient quantity. 
Thefe important purfuits have led Dr. priestley to 
the difcovery of one of the benefits, and perhaps the 
principal, we derive from refpiration ; that function of the 
a. animal 
