Inaugural dissertation on the nature of respiration, and the extent of its connection with the nervous system : submitted to the Medical Faculty of the University of Edinburgh ... / by George A.F. Wilks.

Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Inaugural dissertation on the nature of respiration, and the extent of its connection with the nervous system : submitted to the Medical Faculty of the University of Edinburgh ... / by George A.F. Wilks. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    35/56 (page 27)
    when the lungs have been completely removed by excision,* * * § or the air excluded from them by strangulation ;f respiring all the time through the medium of the skin. When im- mersed in aerated water, the duration of their existence depends in a great degree, as in fishes, upon the tempera- ture of that medium.;]; At 32° Fahr. they will exist for a long period in water of which the air is unchanged; but if the elevation of the temperature equal or exceed 56° Fahr., and they are excluded from atmospheric respiration, they speedily die, although the water in which they are immersed, may be changed with the greatest rapidity. It is remarkable, however, that when thus retained under aerated water, although, by lowering the temperature, their existence is prolonged, they lose their activity, and become remarkably sluggish and torpid. But the most wonderful phenomenon connected with batracian respira- tion, is the endurance of life which they exhibit, when in- carcerated for years in solid materials, as marble, mill- stone, || grit, &c. of which several instances are on record. That the quantity of air necessary for supporting existence in this state of torpor is extremely small, is the only me- thod of accounting for this curious phenomenon ; but it is further proved, by experiments of Dr Edwards,§ that the reason that frogs live longer when inclosed in solid bodies, than in air, is to be sought for in the greatly diminished loss by perspiration in the former media. That they do actually respire, when thus incarcerated, in a degree suffi- cient to support life for a long period, under the favourable circumstances of inaction and diminished evaporation, is, I think, satisfactorily proved, by enclosing animals in plas- * Edwards, Influence des Ag. Pliys. sur la Vie. ■)• Id. J Id. || A case of this kind (communicated by a surgeon from Brough in West- moreland) was related by Dr Blundell, together with several others, in his Eccturcs on Physiology. § Infl. des Ag. Phys. sur la Vie.