Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	left_a	lung_n	ventricle_n	2,628	5	12.9083	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29003	New experiments physico-mechanicall, touching the spring of the air, and its effects (made, for the most part, in a new pneumatical engine) : written by way of letter to the Right Honorable Charles, Lord Vicount of Dungarvan, eldest son to the Earl of Corke / by the Honorable Robert Boyle, Esq.	Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.	1660 (1660)	Wing B3998; ESTC R19421	166,271	430

destroy a little Animal or at least make the Air too intemperately hot to be fit for Respiration But though this be a Difficulty not so easily to be resolv'd without the assistance of our Engine yet I suppose we have already answer'd the Objection by our 38th and 39th Experiments which though we made partly for other purposes yet we premis'd them onely to clear up the difficulty propos'd Another suspition we should have entertain'd concerning the death of our Animals namely That upon the sudden removal of the wonted pressure of the ambient Air the warm Blood of those Animals was brought to an Effervescence or Ebullition or at least so vehemently expanded as to disturb the Circulation of the Blood and so disorder the whole Oeconomy of the Body This I say I should have had some suspition of but that Animals of a hot Constitution are not the sole ones that cannot in our exhausted Engine exercise the Function of Life But I must not now dwell upon matters of this nature because I think it high time to proceed to the consideration of the principal subject of our Engine namely The use of Respiration or rather The use of the Air in Respiration For whereas of the divers uses of it mention'd by Anatomists the most such as the Production and Modulation of the Voice by the Elision of the Air the Larynx c. the expulsion of Excrements by Coughing the conveying in of Odours by Inspiration and some others rather convenient for the well being of an Animal then absolutely necessary to his Life Whereas I say the other uses are such as we have said The great Hippocrates himself gives this notable Testimony to the use of the Air as to Animals endow'd with Lungs Mortalibus says he hic spiritus tum vitae tum morborum aegrotis causa est Tantáque corporibus omnibus spiritûs inest necessitas ut siquidem aliis omnibus cibis potionibus quis abstineat duos tamē aut tres vel plures dies possit vitam ducere At si quis spiritus in corpus vias intercipiat vel exiguâ diei parte homini pereundum sit Ad●o necessarius est usus spiritûs in corpore Ad haec quoque quum omnibus aliis actionibus homines qu●escant quod mutationibus innumeris vita sit exposita ab hâc tamen solá actione nunquam desistant animantia quin aut spiritum adducant aut reddant But touching the account upon which the Inspiration and Exspiration of Air both which are comprehended in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Respiration is so necessary to Life both Naturalists and Physitians do so disagree that it will be very difficult either to reconcile their Opinions or determine their Controversies For first Many there are who think the chief if not sole use of Respiration to be the Cooling and tempering of that Heat in the Heart and Blood which otherwise would be immoderate And this Opinion not onely seems to be most received amongst Scholastick Writers but divers of the new Philosophers Cartesians and others admitted with some variation teaching That the Air is necessary by its coldness to condense the Blood that passes out of the right Ventricle of the Heart into the Lungs that thereby it may obtain such a consistence as is requisite to make it fit Fewel for the vital Fire or Flame in the left Ventricle of the heart And this Opinion seems favor'd by this That Fishes and other cold Creatures whose Hearts have but one cavity are also unprovided of Lungs and by some other considerations But though it need not be deny'd that the inspir'd Air may sometimes be of use by refrigerating the Heart yet against the Opinion that makes this Refrigeration the most genuine and constant use of the Air it may be Objected That divers cold Creatures some of which as particularly Frogs live in the Water have yet need of Respiration which seems not likely to be needed for Refrigeration by them that are destitute of any sensible heat and besides live in the cold Water That even decrepid old Men whose natural heat is made very languid and almost extinguish'd by reason of age have yet a necessity of frequent Respiration That a temperate Air is fittest for the generality of breathing Creatures and as an Air too hot so also an Air too cold may be inconvenient for them especially if they be troubled with an immoderate degree of the same Quality which is predominant in the Air That in some Diseases the natural heat is so weaken'd that in case the use of Respiration were to cool it would be more hurtful then beneficial to breath and the suspending of the Respiration may supply the place of those very hot Medicines that are wont to be employ'd in such Distempers That Nature might much better have given the Heart but a moderate heat then such an excessive one as needs to be perpetually cool'd to keep it from growing destructive which the gentle and not the burning heat of an Animals Heart seems not intense enough so indispensably to require These and other Objections might be oppos'd and press'd against the recited Opinion But we shall not insist on them but onely adde to them That it appears not by our foregoing Experiments I mean the 38th and 39th that in our exhausted Receiver where yet Animals die so suddenly for want of Respiration the ambient Body is sensibly hotter then the common Air. Other Learned Men there are who will have the very substance of the Air to get in by the Vessels of the Lungs to the left Ventricle of the Heart not onely to temper its heat but to provide for the generation of Spirits And these alledge for themselves the Authority of the Antients among whom Hippocrates seems manifestly to favor their Opinion and both Aristotle and Galen do sometimes for methinks they speak doubtfully enough appear inclinable to it But for ought ever I could see in Dissections it is very difficult to make out how the Air is convey'd into the left Ventricle of the Heart especially the Systole and Diastole of the Heart and Lungs being very far from being Synchronical Besides that the Spirits seeming to be but the most subtle and unctuous Particles of the Blood appear to be of a very differing Nature from that of the lean and incombustible Corpuscles of Air. Other Objections against this Opinion have been propos'd and prest by that excellent Anatomist and my Industrious Friend Dr. Highmore to whom I shall therefore refer you Another Opinion there is touching Respiration which makes the genuine use of it to be Ventilation not of the Heart but of the Blood in its passage thorow the Lungs in which passage it is disburthened of those Excrementitious Steams proceeding for the most part from the superfluous Serosities of the Blood we may adde and of the Chyle too which by those new Conduits of late very happily detected by the famous Pecquet hath been newly mix'd with it in the

that by the dilatation of the Chest the contiguous Air is thrust away and that pressing upon the next Air to it and so onwards the Propulsion is continued till the Air be driven into the Lungs and so dilate them When this I say is answered it is Objected even by Bartholine himself as a convincing Reply that according to this Doctrine a Man could not fetch his Breath from a great Vessel full of Air with a slender Neck because that when his Mouth covers the Orifice of the Neck the dilatation of his Thorax could not propell the Air in the Vessel into his Lungs by reason of its being separated by the inclosing Vessel from the ●mbient Air and yet say they Experience witnesses that out of such a Vessel a Man may suck Air. But of this difficulty our Engine furnishes us with an easie Solution since many of the former Experiments have manifested That in the case proposed there needs not be made any though 't is true that in ordinary Respiration there is wont to be made some propulsion of the Air by the swelling Thorax or Abdomen into the Lungs since upon the bare Dilatation of the Thorax the Spring of that internal Air or halituous substance that is wont to possess as much of the Cavity of the Chest as the Lungs fill not up being much weaken'd the external and contiguous Air must necessarily press in at the open Winde-Pipe into the Lungs as finding there less resistance then any where else about it And hence by the way we may derive a new assistance to judge of that famous Controversie disputed among Naturalists and Physicians ever since Galens time some maintaining that the Chest with the contained Lungs may be resembled to a pair of Bellows which comes therefore to be fill'd because it was dilated And others pleading to have the comparison made to a Bladder which is therefore dilated because it is fill'd For as to the Thorax it seems evident from what has been lately said that it like a pair of Bellows happens to be partly fill'd with Air but because it was dilated But as for the Lungs themselves who want Fibres to distend them they may fitly enough be compar'd to a Bladder since they are dilated by being fill'd namely by that Air which rushes into them upon the dilatation of the Chest in whose increased Cavity it findes as we freshly noted less resistance to its Spring then elsewhere And this brings into my minde that strange Observation of Nicolaus Fontanus a Physitian at Amsterdam Fontanus apud Bartholin lib. 2. cap. 9. who testifies That in a Boy of the same Town four years old there was found instead of Lungs a certain Membranous Bladder which being fill'd with Wind and furnish'd with little Veins had its origination from the Wind-Pipe it self which being suppos'd true how well it will agree with most of the Opinions touching Respiration I leave to be considered And thus may the grand Objection of Bartholine and others be answered But I leave to Anatomists to consider what is to be said to some Observations that seem to contradict those Anatomical Experiments already mention'd Such was particularly that which I remember I have read in Sennertus from the observation of his Farther-in-law Schato of a Melancholy Student who having stabb'd himself and pierced the Diaphragme in the thinner or tendonous part call'd by many the Nervous Circle lived seven Moneths after he had so wounded himself though after his death preceded by violent Vomitings the Wound perchance dilated by those strainings appear'd so great that the whole Stomack was found to have got in by it into the left side of the Thorax And such also was the accident that happen'd to a Noble Man whom I remember I have seen and who is yet alive in whose Chest there has for these many years remain'd a hole so great that the motion of his Heart may be perceiv'd by it These I say and some other Observations I shall now forbear to insist on because I hold it not unfit before we come to consider the use of Respiration that we acquaint Your Lordship with an Ingenious Conjecture that was made at the cause of the hasty death of the Animals our Engine kill'd namely That it was not the want of Air that destroy'd them but the Pressure of the innate Air in the cavity of the Chest as if the Spring of this Air being no longer counterballanc'd by the ambient Air was thereby become so strong that it kept the Thorax forcibly distended and hinder'd its wonted contraction and so compress'd the Lungs and their Vessels as to obstruct the Circulation of the Blood And this Conjecture as it is specious enough so I might have admitted it for true but that I consider'd that not to mention that one especially of the Animals kill'd in our Engine seem'd manifestly for a pretty while and not long before he dy'd to move his Thorax as if he exercis'd Respiration the diligent Wallaeus relates That he divers times observ'd in the Dissection of live Bodies that the Membrane that invests the Lungs had Pores in it as big as the larger sort of Peas which agrees with the Observations of Chyrurgions and Physitians viz. That matter collected in the Thorax has penetrated into the Lungs and been discharged by coughing And I remember too that most of the Animals we kill'd in our Engine were Birds of whose Lungs Harvey somewhere informs us That he observ'd them very manifestly to open at their Extremities into the Abdomen And by such Perforations we may well suppose the passage free betwixt the external Air and that in the Abdomen But 〈◊〉 Conjecture may be further 〈◊〉 Besides to show that the Anim●●● 〈◊〉 died in our Glasses need not be 〈◊〉 to have been kill'd by the want of Air we foresee another Argument that we must deal so ingeniously with Your Lordship as not to conceal You very well know that besides the generality of the Schools there are many new Philosophers who though they dissent from the old Peripateticks in other things do as they deny the possibility of a Vacuum and hold that those spaces which are devoid of Air and other grosser Bodies are all of them exactly replenished with a certain Etherial Matter so thin and subtle that it can freely permeate the Pores of the compactedst and closest Bodies and ev'n of Glass it self Now some of those Naturalists that are of this perswasion may object That the Animals that died in our Receivers did so not so much for lack of Air as by reason that the Air that was pump'd out was necessarily succeeded by an Etherial Substance which consisting of parts vehemently agitated and so very small as without resistance to pass in and out through the very Pores of Glass it may well be suppos'd that a considerable quantity of this restless and subtle Matter meeting together in the Receiver with the excessive heat of it may be quickly able to