A new inquiry into the suspension of vital action, in cases of drowning and suffocation. Being an attempt to concentrate into a more luminous point of view, the scattered rays of science, respecting that interesting though mysterious subject to elucidate the approximate cause and to appretiate [sic] the present remedies, and to point out the best method of restoring animation / By A. Fothergill.

  • Anthony Fothergill
Date:
1795
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new inquiry into the suspension of vital action, in cases of drowning and suffocation. Being an attempt to concentrate into a more luminous point of view, the scattered rays of science, respecting that interesting though mysterious subject to elucidate the approximate cause and to appretiate [sic] the present remedies, and to point out the best method of restoring animation / By A. Fothergill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [ 3* ] hibits in palling through the lungs. Or if the lungs of a drowned animal are inflated with Vital air, inftead of common air; it reftores the vivid colour of the blood much fooner. 18. From what has been obferved (15—17.) it appears evident that the blood, and the conti¬ guous air, in their paflage through the lungs, un¬ dergo a remarkable change by their mutual aftion upon each other. Nor is this to be wondered at, fines it has been found by experiment, that Vital air is capable of changing black blood to a bright red, even through the denfe coats of a bladder. But the change of colour implies a change in the quality of the blood, either from fomething noxious being expelled from the general mafs, or from fomething falutary imbibed. That the air which is expelled from the lungs is noxious to animal life, and the air drawn in falu¬ tary, has been already demonftrated (14—16.) O11 weighing the circumftances (13—17.) it feems reafonable to conclude that the principal ufe of refpiration, is to carry off noxious air, and to in¬ hale pure air, and that this procefs is performed by chemical attraftion. For the lungs are known to be merely a paflive organ, being afled upon, and fupplying the place, (if we may be allowed the homely expreflion) of a pair of bellows. The blood, in its rapid career from the heart to all the remote parts of the fyftem, verges to¬ wards