Dr. Keenan's lectures on the functions of the lungs.

Date:
[1842 or 1843?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Keenan's lectures on the functions of the lungs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Dr. KEENAN'S LECTURES ON THE FUNCTIONS OF THE LUNGS. We feel great pleasure in laying before the readers of the WtftKtk- the following extract from the Ulster Times of December 3, 1842, being the subject of a short course of Lectures lately delivered in the Athenaeum of that town by our late townsman, Dr. Keenan :—■ We have refrained from noticing these Lectures hitherto, till we should have some knowledge both of the subject and the Doctor's manner of treating it. His first proposition is, that breathing is a process which generates a galvanic force, and that that force is nothing but bodily strength or animal spirits. The proof of this is derived from facts in che¬ mistry and galvanism, which show that air, joining with charcoal and hydrogen, (the chemical combination which takes place in breathing,) cannot but result in a galvanic influence ; that whatever increases the gal¬ vanism produced in breathing, increases our strength, and whatever dimi¬ nishes the former, diminishes the latter also. For instance, camphor, ammonia, or alcohol, which have a strong affinity or appetite for air, and which, therefore, in joining with air, must generate much galvanic force, are well known, for the time at least, to increase bodily strength. Again, warm and moist air (which contains less oxygen to combine with the char¬ coal and hydrogen in the food) produce, on the contrary, indisposition to motion, weakness, and lowness of spirits. Lastly, whatever increases or diminishes electricity in the electrifying machine, in like manner increases or diminishes the energy of the animal body. The second proposition is, contrary to what has ever been supposed, that the most of food is not for the purpose of nourishing (composing) the animal texture, but is primarily for the purpose of combining with the air to generate the moving power ; because if air is for the purpose of joining with the food, some of the food must consequently be for the purpose of joining with the air. This view divides food into two kinds; first, that which has a strong affinity for air—viz. oils, fats, meal, and sugar—and which may be called food for the production of energy ; and, second, that which is of a similitude with the animal texture, being required to compose them, and which had its type in white of eggs, cheese, and fibrine. It follows, from this view of the subject, that milk and eggs, which are destined by nature to form the bodies of young animals, may be very im¬ proper food, in large quantities, for adults, as they require more of an oxidizable food, such as butter and flour, to generate animal spirits, than plastic, to form the body, which is already made. So long as food wa? supposed to be for nutrition alone, it was not easy to perceive what became of it; because the body did not continually increase, although a man con¬ tinued to eat. To account for this paradox, an hypothesis was adopted which has no foundation in nature, viz. that there is a constant removal of old particles, and a constant deposition of new, so that the whole of the body is renewed every seven years. The reasons given to show the fallacy of this hypothesis would take up more room than can be given to this article, and we shall, therefore, content ourselves by exemplifying the arguments of the Doctor, who remarked, that when a fat man takes a fever, and becomes emaciated, his emaciation is no proof that the real staminal parts of his body have changed; because fat is no part of the body, as such, but is merely a depository of digested food (charcoal and hydrogen), which, in the absence of eating, the constitution delivers up to the air, to combine with the oxygen, for the production of force to keep the blood in circulation, and to maintain other natural actions. Neither is there any proof in the famous experiment of feeding animals on madder; for, although in time the dyed textures of the animal becomes white, this is to be attri- b/dD7/.