Respiration / by John Reid.

  • Reid, John, 1809-1849.
Date:
[1848?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Respiration / by John Reid. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    RESPIRATION. BT JOHN REID, M.D. T-RCFESSOR Of MEDICINE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS. (From the Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology.') RESPIRATION (Germ. Athmung).—Be- fore the nutritious juices of organized bodies can be properly elaborated and rendered fit for maintaining the vitality of the tissues through which they move, it is indispensable that certain chemical changes take place between them and the atmospheric air. All organized bodies, therefore, vegetable as well as animal, require a supply of atmospheric air for the continuance of life, and the amount of this is proportionate to the number and energy of their vital actions. These chemical changes between the nutritious juices of organized bodies and the atmospheric air constitute the important function of Respiration. In studying the chemical actions that occur in respiration in dilfcrent organized bodies, it is necessary to keep in mind the constitution of the atmospheric air, both in its free state and when dissolved in water. The atmo* spheric air, in its free state, is, as is well known, chiefly composed of nitrogen and oxy- gen, in the proportion of about 21 parts of oxygen to 79 of nitrogen by volume ; or by weight, in the proportion of 23*1 of oxygen to 70*9 of nitrogen. Dumas and Boussingault, in their accurate experiments*, found the average proportion of these gases to be, by volume, 20*81 of oxygen, and 79*19 of nitro- gen f; or by weight, 23*01 of oxygen, and 76*99 of nitrogen. The quantity of carbonic acid gas in the atmospheric air is very much smaller than that of the oxygen and nitrogen. Theod. De SaussureJ, in his experiments, * Annales dc Chimie 'et do Physique, troisihme sdrie, tom. iii. p. 257. 1841. f Or, what would be sufficiently accurate, 20*8 oxygen and 79*2 nitrogen. f Annales de Chimie et de Physique, tom. xxxviii. p. 411. 1828. A • ->