Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	lung_n	right_a	ventricle_n	2,433	5	12.8369	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

I design'd in mentioning the Narrative I shall set down in his own Words I therefore says he perswade myself That the Element of the Air is there so subtle and delicate as it is not proportionable with the breathing of Man which requires a more gross and temperate Air and I believe it is the cause that doth so much alter the Stomack and trouble all the Disposition Thus far our Author whose Words I mention that we may ghess by what happens somewhat near the Confines of the Atmosphere though propably far from the surface of it what would happen beyond the Atmosphere That which some of those that treat of the height of Mountains relate out of Aristotle namely That those that ascend to the top of the Mountain Olympus could not keep themselves alive without carrying with them wet Spunges by whose assistance they could respire in that Air otherwise too thin for Respiration That Relation I say concerning this Mountain would much confirm what has been newly recited out of Acosta if we had sufficient reason to believe it But I confess I am very diffident of the truth of it partly because when I pass'd the Alps I took notice of no notible change betwixt the consistence of the Air at the top and at the bottom of the Mountain partly because of a very punctual relation made by an English Gentleman of his ascension on to the top of the Pike of Tenariff which is by great odds higher then Olympus I finde no mention of any such difficulty of breathing and partly also because the same Author tells us out of Aristotle That upon the top of Olympus there is no motion of the Air insomuch that Letters traced upon the dust have been after many years found legible and not discompos'd whereas that Inquisitive Busbequius who was Ambassador from the German to the Turkish Emperor in one of his Eloquent Epistles Epist. 3. tells us upon his own knowledge That Olympus may be seen from Constantinople blanch'd with perpetual Snow which seems to argue That the top of that as well as of divers other tall Hills is not above that Region of the Air wherein Meteors are formed Though otherwise in that memorable Narrative which David Fraelichius Fraelichius apud Varen Geogra Gener lib. 1. cap. 19. made of his ascent to the top of the prodigiously high Hungarian Mountain Carpathus he tells us That when having pass'd through very thick Clouds he came to the very top of the Hill he found the Air so calm and subtle that not a hair of his head moved whereas in the Lower Stages of the Mountain he felt a vehement Wind. But this might well be casual as was his having a clear Air where he was though there were Clouds not onely beneath him but above him But though what has been hitherto discours'd incline us to look upon the Ventilation and Depuration of the Blood as one of the principal and constant uses of Respiration yet methinks it may be suspected that the Air does something more then barely help to carry off what is thrown out of the Blood in its passage through the Lungs from the right Ventricle of the Heart to the left For we see in Phlegmatick Constitutions and Diseases that the Blood will circulate tolerably well notwithstanding its being excessively serous And in Asthmatical Persons we often see that though the Lungs be very much stuff'd with tough Phlegm yet the Patient may live some Moneths if not some Years So that it seems scarce probable that either the want of throwing out the superfluous Serum of the Blood for a few Moments or the detaining it during so short a while in the Lungs should be able to kill a perfectly sound and lively Animal I say for a few moments because that having divers times try'd the Experiment of killing Birds in a small Receiver we commonly found that within half a minute of an hour or thereabouts the Bird would be surpris'd by mortal Convulsions and within about a minute more would be stark dead beyond the Recovery of the Air though never so hastily let in Which sort of Experiments seem so strange that we were oblig'd to make it several times which gain'd it the Advantage of having Persons of differing Qualities Professions and Sexes as not onely Ladies and Lords but Doctors and Mathematicians to witness it And to satisfie Your Lordship that it was not the narrowness of the Vessel but the sudden Exsuction of the Air that dispatch'd these Creatures so soon we will adde That we once inclos'd one of these Birds in one of these small Receivers where for a while he was so little sensible of his Imprisonment that he eat very chearfully certain Seeds that we convey'd in with him and not onely liv'd ten minutes but had probably liv'd much longer had not a great Person that was Spectator of some of these Experiments rescu'd him from the prosecution of the Tryal Another Bird being within about half a minute cast into violent Convulsions and reduc'd into a sprawling condition upon the Exsuction of the Air by the pitty of some Fair Lady's related to Your Lordship who made me hastily let in some Air at the Stop-cock the gasping Animal was presently recover'd and in a condition to enjoy the benefit of the Lady's Compassion And another time also being resolv'd not to be interrupted in our Experiment we did at night shut up a Bird in one of our small Receivers and observ'd that for a good while he so little felt the alteration of the Air that he fell asleep with his head under his wing and though he afterwards awak'd sick yet he continu'd upon his legs between forty minutes and three quarters of an hour after which seeming ready to expire we took him out and soon found him able to make use of the liberty we gave him for a compensation of his sufferings If to the foregoing Instances of the sudden destruction of Animals by the removal of the ambient Air we should now annex some that we think fitter to reserve till anon perhaps Your Lordship would suspect with me that there is some use of the Air which we do not yet so well understand that makes it so continually needful to the Life of Animals Paracelsus indeed tells us That as the Stomack concocts Meat and makes part of it useful to the Body rejecting the other part so the Lungs consume part of the Air and proscribes the rest So that according to our Hermetick Philosopher as his followers would have him stil'd it seems we may suppose that there is in the Air a little vital Quintessence if I may so call it which serves to the refreshment and restauration of our vital Spirits for which use the grosser and incomparably greater part of the Air being unserviceable it need not seem strange that an Animal stands in need of almost incessantly drawing in fresh Air. But though this Opinion is not as of some of the same