A chemico-medical essay to explain the operation of oxigene, or the base of vital air on the human body / by Benjamin De Witt, M.P.M.S. ; citizen of the state of New-York.

Date:
1797
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A chemico-medical essay to explain the operation of oxigene, or the base of vital air on the human body / by Benjamin De Witt, M.P.M.S. ; citizen of the state of New-York. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    CONCLUSION. THUS I have endeavoured in a compendious method to trace the influence of this active agent upon the human body. My objecl: has been chiefly to develope the fundamental principles of its operation. In doing this I have avoided as much as poflible, ftraying into the flowery path of imagi- nation, or launching into the open field of conjec- ture. I lament that I have not been able to throw more light upon this important fubjeft by new ex- periments, but my time has been hitherto necefTa- rily exhaufted, in a clofe attention to the various other branches of the boundlefs fcience of medi- cine. In taking a review of our fubject, we are natu- rally led to trace the progrefs of the powers of the mind, in acquiring a knowledge of the laws and operations of nature; but a few years ago, philofo- phers like the <* children of the world*, amufed themfelvcs with calculating the elaflicity, the den- fity and prelTure of the air, without, perhaps, the moft diftant idea of its having thofe more important chemical properties, which we now know it to pof- feCs. If our fcience has already made fuch rapid ad- vances, as to analyze and divide afunder, the in.vifi- * Lord Bacon.