On the function of respiration, in health and in disease, and more especially in cholera, typhus, &c. Also, on the formation of atmospheric air / By Richard Saumarez.

  • Richard Saumarez
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the function of respiration, in health and in disease, and more especially in cholera, typhus, &c. Also, on the formation of atmospheric air / By Richard Saumarez. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    rays entering into chemical union with it, twenty per cent of them are left suspended in it, i. e. twenty parts in one hundred, in a state of mechanical diffusion ; insomuch that whilst the nitrogen of the atmosphere is supersaturated with them, the remainder passes through in a radiant form. It is this hyperquantity of solar matter which the nitro¬ gen receives, and which it has the capacity to sustain, which I presume with great deference to believe, constitutes the element known by the name of oxygen : so that nitro¬ gen may be considered as the recipient or matrix in which it is contained. Instead of continuing, like nitrogen, in a state of unity, neither changing the qualities of the bodies by which it is surrounded, nor changed by them,—the solar matter, the simple element which constitutes the oxygenous principle, subsists, like watery vapour in nitro¬ gen, loosely in it, and is at liberty to unite with every sub¬ stance, to which it has affinity ;—it is active with every thing, and passive with nothing ;—it becomes the opera¬ tive and combinative principle, by whose energy the dif¬ ferent chemical changes we behold different bodies undergo, are principally to be ascribed. It is the principle of oxydation in metals,-—of acidulation in vegetables,—of respiration in animals—of inflammation in combustibles, and is the most arid substance in nature. It answers to what the late Dr. Murray very justly says of it, ‘ ‘ that the affinities of oxygen are more extensive-—its com¬ binations more numerous and its actions* more energetic, than any other chemical agent ; so that the developement of its energies forms the principal objects of chemical science.” Instead, therefore, -of continuing the name of oxygen, I would change it, and call it the hyperphotite of water. The mechanical .property which these gases possess, identify their generic character, by which they are distin¬ guished from every other substance : instead of falling like
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