Carbonic acid in medicine / by Achilles Rose, M.D. ; with the portraits of van Helmont, Priestley and Lavoisier.

  • Achilles Rose
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Carbonic acid in medicine / by Achilles Rose, M.D. ; with the portraits of van Helmont, Priestley and Lavoisier. 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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    the air of expiration contains about one hun- dred times as much carbonic acid as the air of inspiration. For the exchange of gases in the lungs the composition of the alveolar air is of paramount significance. Of the composition of this air in man we possess no positive but only approxi- mate calculations; the probable amount of car- bonic acid contained in the alveolar air has been set down at 5.44 per cent., the amount of oxygen as 14.96 per cent.—the latter corre- sponding with a partial pressure of 114 mm. of mercury. Bohr believes that the lungs take an active part in the absorption of oxygen; other authors have controverted this assumption. The pres- ent state of the question is such that we can not produce sufficient reasons for abandoning the view as yet generally adopted, viz., that the entrance of oxygen into the lungs takes place simply by means of diffusion; and further, after what has been said of tension and dissociation of oxygen in the blood, it is to be supposed that the amount of oxygen in the blood, at least [12]