Lecture on the necessity of the study of physiology : delivered before the American Institute of Instruction at Hartford, August 22, 1845 / by Edward Jarvis.

  • Edward Jarvis
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lecture on the necessity of the study of physiology : delivered before the American Institute of Instruction at Hartford, August 22, 1845 / by Edward Jarvis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    ishing to disorder, rather than to invigorate the animal body. This law of nature is fixed and cannot be revoked, nor modified in the least degree. As certain as the chemistry of the laboratory is the chemistry of the ]Ungs — as sure as that nitric acid and potash, and nothing else, will make saltpetre — so surely will the air, precisely as nature made and compounded it, combine with the carbon of the blood, and make car- bonic acid, and carry this out from the living body. It is our duty, therefore, at every moment of our lives, to give our lungs fresh and pure air; not air that has been breathed over once and more, for that has lost a part or the whole of its oxygen, and is loaded more or less with carbonic acid gas. Nor should we breathe the air mixed with any other gas or substance, nor with the dust of streets, nor the exhalations of marshes, nor the smoke of lamps, of fires, or tobacco, nor the effluvia of shops or brew- eries, or of decaying matter. The lungs were given us for this sole purpose of decarbonizing the blood, and for the formation of the voice. To use them for any other purpose is a per- version of their legitimate objects, and a violation of the natural law. The next demand of nature is room for free expan- sion of the chest. In this, all she asks is to be let alone; she is content with non-interference, so that she may lift the ribs and spread the walls of the chest far and wide, and breathe deep and full, and give the blood plentiful supply of air to purify it.