On the changes produced in atmospheric air, and oxygen gas, by respiration

• Published in: Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Royal Society 1832
• Subjects: Goodwin; Menzies; Priestley; Carbonic acid
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspl.1800.0167; https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspl.1800.0167

The importance of a process so essential to life having excited proportional curiosity in philosophers from the earliest ages, the authors of the present communication take occasion to trace the history of their subject. Beginning with the conjectures of Hippocrates and of Plato, they proceed to notice the first accurate notions of Boyle and of Mayow, which were neglected and forgotten till the time when Priestley and Scheele first distinguished the two constituent parts of the atmosphere from each other. The next discovery of importance on respiration, is that by Dr. Black, who observed the formation of carbonic acid. Succeeding labourers in the same field of inquiry, it is observed, are too numerous for justice to be done to every one; and the principal information collected from them relates to measures of quantity. Dr. Goodwin estimated the residual gas in the lungs, after expiration, at 109 inches. Dr. Menzies found the absorption of oxygen nearly 52,000 inches in twenty-four hours.