THEORY
OF
Circulation by Respiration.
SYNOPSIS OF ITS PRINCIPLES AND HISTORY.
WRITTEN, BY REQUEST,
For the “U. S. JOURNAL OF HOMŒOPATHY,”
BY EMMA WILLARD.
New-York:
FRANCIS HART & CO. PRINTERS AND STATIONERS, 63 CORTLANDT STREET.
1861.
THEORY
OF
CIRCULATION BY RESPIRATION.
SECTION I.
First step in the discovery—Animal Heat the product of Respiration.Second step—Heat evolved in the lungs by Respiration there producesExpansion. Third step—Expansion; implied motion, which from theorganism must conduct the blood to the left ventricle of the Heart.Theory imperfect, until the formation of sufficient vapor or steamin the lungs is perceived and acknowledged.
To Dr. Marcy.—In complying with your request to write for your journalan article embodying my theory of the motive powers which produce thecirculation of the blood, together with some account of its rise andprogress, I obey what I regard as a call of duty; and thus requested, doit with pleasure.
But my theory, with its history, cannot thus be written without egotism.Logicians say, that the way to convince others is to retrace, in order,the steps by which you yourself became convinced, which is to beegotistic. But in this case, there is a further reason: the scientificdiscoverer must speak of the apparatus by which he experiments, and minewas often my own physical frame.
Twenty years ago, while yet my mind, laboring with this great subject,was condemned
“to drudge
Without a second and without a judge,”
you, sir, comprehended the hypothesis which has now become a theory, andyou waited not for others to speak, but you fully acknowledged itstruth; and although, in Hartford, as now in New-York, you were throngedwith practice, (then allopathic), you yet found time to furnish me withadded experiments, made in your office, confirmatory of its truth, whichby your permission were afterwards added in your name to my publishedwork.
The first step in the theory occurred to my mind in the winter of 1822,and while I was engaged in founding the Troy Female Seminary. Being inattendance on a course of lectures on chemistry, and at the same timeteaching to a class Mrs. Marcett’s excellent work on that subject, onecold morning, as I was walking briskly up a hill, I said to myself, Whydo I grow warm? Whence comes this accession of caloric? It cannot betransmitted to me from any object without, because every thing whichcomes in contact with me is cold. Snow is under my feet, and frosty airsurrounds me; and, as to clothing, even the softest furs impart nowarmth—they but keep from escaping that which comes from within. Whatother method besides transmission is there of gaining heat? There is theelimination of caloric, when, in substances chemically combining, weightis gained and bulk is lost. Is there any such combination going on inme? Yes; this atmospheric air, when I inspire it, has oxygen combinedwith nitrogen; but when I expire, the oxygen has disappeared, andheavier substances—carbonic acid gas and watery vapor—are returned inits place. Thus, it must be, animal heat is evolved. It is the productof respiration; and it is because I breathe faster and deeper, that morecarbon is oxidized or burned, and more heat is set free