A critical analysis of the memoir read by Dr. Barry before the Academy of Sciences : on the 8th of June, 1825, at the Institute of France, on atmospheric pressure; being the principal cause of the progression of the blood in the veins. / By Henry Searle.

  • Searle, Henry, active 1827.
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A critical analysis of the memoir read by Dr. Barry before the Academy of Sciences : on the 8th of June, 1825, at the Institute of France, on atmospheric pressure; being the principal cause of the progression of the blood in the veins. / By Henry Searle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    into a greater or lesser number of distensible cells, communicating with one another, and, with a common tube, the Trachea. When the chest is enlarged by the act of inspiration, air rushes in through this tube, to distend the air-cells, and force them to occupy that space, in which the expanding parieties of the thorax tend to leave a vacuum. But as it is evident that the air would follow the expanding sides of the chest, much more readily if there were no cells to be dis- tended ; and as it is an unalterable law, that all liquids in communication with an enlarging cavity will be pressed towards it, if exposed at the same time to atmospheric influence, it became pre- sumable that blood would be forced into the thorax through the cavee, during inspiration. Having once caught this view of the part which respiration might probably bear in the cir' culation, particularly of the venous blood, seve- ral known facts presented themselves in support of its correctness, viz. the swelling of the exter- nal jugular veins during exfiration, and their immediate collapse during inspiration. The checking of certain hoemorrhages by forced in-