Contributions to the study of the heart and lungs / by James R. Leaming.
- James Rosebrugh Leaming
- Date:
- 1887
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Contributions to the study of the heart and lungs / by James R. Leaming. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![body, has no more motion than has the bottom of the deep sea. No change can occur except molecular, and none other is necessary. The law of diffusion of gases assures the comparative purity of the residual air, as well as its constant and guarded impurity, which is so necessary for the accomplishment of the vital act.* The circulation would not go on if each blood-globule should immediately come in contact with pure air, for then it would lose its impelling force, and, all of the globules alike losing their attraction, there would be stasis. Instead of this, both in the blood and the re- sidual air, each glohafea^f^agh^ir-particle moves in perfect order, nev^m each otneT'/^sray. This shows how the individual may nve^mlDad^llr for a time, re- sisting its evil ilende&cies, 4ndi^eV-kn Hilt of- poisonous gases. It shows, also wlry^niejlical inhalations fail in their object. Me^ate/1, vapors* ha5fe little or no ad- mission into the resia^-al^l£^jEven oxygen gas, which is sometimes serviceable, can only supply atmospheric deficiencies. It can neither do the harm nor the good that has been predicated for it. An animal may even live for a time in pure oxygen gas, the active inter- change taking place between the gas and the blood re- * This diffusion [of gases] is constantly going on, so that the air in the pulmonary vesicles, where the interchange'of gases with the blood takes place, maintains a pretty uniform composition. The process of aeration of the blood, therefore, has none of the intermittent character which attends the mechanical processes of respiration. Flint, Physiology, vol. i. p. 407. Now it is obvious if no provision existed for mingling the air inspired with the air already occupying the lungs, the former would penetrate no further than the larger air-passages. The change must be attributed to the 'mutual diffusion' of gases.'' Carpenter, Physiology, Phila., 1853. See, also, Kirke, Physiology, p. 235. Cyclopaedia of Anat. and Phys., Lond., 1847-49, vol. iv., part i., p. 362.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21063680_0052.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
