THE LONDON AND EDINBURGH MONTHLY JOURNAL OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. EDITED BY JOHN ROSE CORMACK, M.D. EDIN.. F.R.S.E., LONDON: JOHN CHURCHILL, PRINCES STREET, SOHO. 1843. ARTICLE I.-Some Experiments' on the Proportion of Carbonic Acid formed during Respiration in Typhus. By A. G. MALCOLM, M.D. Edin., Belfast. PREVIOUS to the year 1757, conjectures alone were broached concerning the chemical phenomena of respiration. Boyle appears to have been the first to direct attention to this subject, inasmuch as he first noticed some of the effects of respiration upon the atmospheric air. His observations, however, were meagre, and merely tended to show, that air in which an animal was confined, was diminished in bulk,-that the blood lost some of its constituents, and that a quantity of moisture escaped from the lungs. Cotemporaneously with Boyle, a number of chemists and others were inclined to believe, that during respiration, a portion of the atmospheric air entered the blood. Among these, we may distinguish the name of Mayow, whose work, entitled Tractatus Quinque Medico-Physici, though written so far back These experiments were performed in the Belfast Fever Hospital. VOL. FOR 1843, NO. I. |