Chapter 2

In my reply, this sentence from Cuvier was chosen as a motto: "Respiration is the function essential to the constitution of an animal body; it is that which, in a manner, animalizes it; and we shall see that animals exercise their peculiar functions more completely according as they enjoy greater powers of respiration."[5] My reasoning was to this effect: "It is in vain to say that cannot be, which is." When two events are so conjoined in nature that one is the only invariable antecedent of the other, then, according to all logic, we are bound to conclude that the first is the physical cause of the second, even though we cannot understand how it should be. Of the circulation, such living respiration as produces heat is the invariable antecedent, and nothing else is. The heart's action, as stated by our reviewer himself, is not therefore respiration, and not the heart's action or anything else, is the cause of the circulation. This argument is upheld by the fact that circulation, varies not only as respiration, but as its products digestion, strength, and, according to Cuvier, animal vitality vary. All begin with respiration, end with it, and are as it is. If respiration ceases, restore it before the organism is deranged, and they are all restored. We must conclude, then, that respiration is the cause of circulation, although we could not see how it should be. Much more, when we discern a mighty power, that of expansion, and see how the Almighty has made our frame in reference to its production by caloric--the lungs allowing of heat within them like wet cloth, and the nerves, bones and muscles all made and arranged, so that oxygen shall be brought to them by respiration on the one hand, and carbon by the numerous digestive and circulatory organs on the other.

As to any deficiency of power, my reviewer had omitted to notice that not only the ordinary expansion of the water of the blood by calorie had been assumed, but also its vaporization, or the change of such a portion as was needed into steam, the lungs being _in vacuo_; so that nature here had not failed of her usual abundance. And had not this power been kept in check by the pressure of the surrounding air hindering the perfect vacuum of the lungs, there was reason to fear, rather its excess than its deficiency. As to the reviewer's assertion that heat is generated in every part of the system, and imparted to the _solids_ equally with the fluids--that I positively denied, in the name of common sense. For who does not know that, although there may be some heat elaborated in the stomach, and some during the processes by which the fluids change to solids, that the great source of heat to the system, is in the fluid blood, and not in solid flesh or bone? Our senses of sight and feeling show us, in the case of blushing, that heat comes and goes with the blood. No one believes that the solid parts of his leg warm the blood as much as it warms them. Finally, it discredited the old theory, that it showed no adequate use for the great primary function of respiration, and its constant attendant, animal heat. Breathing and warmth are not ultimate ends. Man breathes to live; he does not live to breathe. He is warm to live; he does not live merely to be warm. Our theory shows that it is these primary agencies which sustain his being; and it sets forth the manner in which they operate for this end. And thus, while it indicates the wisdom of the Almighty in the formation of the animal frame, it shows itself to be His true interpreter.

SECTION III.

Uses of the Theory--Proofs.--Publication of a Work, in 1849, entitled "Respiration and its Effects, more, especially in relation to Asiatic Cholera and other Sinking Diseases."--Examples.

TO DR. MARCY.--The theory of the two chief motive powers which operate at the centre was, we conceive, completed by the addition of steam formed in the vacuum of the lungs, as available to give to the blood its due velocity. We also believe that complete proof _a priori_ had been adduced of the fallacy of the theory that the _primum mobile_ is in the heart; and, also, that proof _a priori_ had been given that it begins at the lungs, and is the product of respiration. It remained to apply this theory to use, and to find proofs _a posteriori_.

Although some of my friends regarded my theory as an _ignis fatuus_ which led me into nothing but evil, yet it has enabled me, by plans of exercise, to endure for many years, in-door sedentary labor--and yet enjoy health; and in unusual emergencies, more than once to save my own life and that of others.

In the cold winter of 1835, I took, at Troy, the old summer stage, at midnight, to cross the Green Mountains. I was alone in the large and ill-closed vehicle; the thermometer was sinking as I proceeded on my way, until it had reached 25 deg. below zero, a degree of cold to which I had never before been subjected. When I had traveled alone twenty miles, I found myself in imminent danger of perishing. Ordinary expedients to get warmth were no longer availing; numbness and cold at the vitals were overcoming me; and I knew that to give way to them was to die. I thought of my theory; but I was fearful that I should commit sin if I tampered with the sacred "breath of life." But my necessity was urgent, and I aroused, stood up, and breathed that dense air with violence. It felt for the moment cold to my lungs, but soon came heat with a rush, and with it pain, as if the whole surface of the throat and lungs were blistered; and my first thought was that I should die, justly punished for my temerity. But soon I was restored to genial warmth; and rejoiced in having successfully made an important physiological experiment.

Afterwards, having been instrumental in relieving a woman who was perishing from having breathed the fumes of charcoal, I was led to reflect that in such cases there was something to be taken away from the lungs, as well as warmth to be added. This woman's extreme coldness, and feeble, fluttering pulse, showed that she was dying for want of right breathing; and in her case there was no doubt that the cause was the same as that of death by drowning. The carbonic acid gas which she had inspired, being heavier than atmospheric air, settled as water in her lungs, and in the same manner prevented the access of oxygen to their living tissues. And hence arose the reflection that the ordinary carbonic acid gas, which is always the residuum of respiration, might, from weakness, settle in the lungs, and thus become the cause of disease and death. The presence of carbonic acid in the lower bronchial tubes and cells, existing in quantities sufficient to prevent the natural combustion by breathing, was brought to my mind in March, 1847, while searching for the cause of an agonizing paroxysm of sick headache. The distressed feelings of obstructed life with which I was tossing and struggling, together with the agonizing pain in the head and pressure on the stomach, might well arise from such a cause. Standing (for position is important) in a full current of air from an open window, I commenced a species of violent artificial breathing, for the purpose of ejecting the supposed heavy gas, and filling my lungs with pure air. This was done by contracting the chest on every side to its smallest possible dimensions, and at the same time throwing out the air violently and from the bottom of the thorax, as if under the operation of an emetic; then alternating by opening the chest to its greatest capacity, and drawing in, by successive inhalations, all the fresh air possible, and pressing it down to the lowest depths of the lungs. This process at first gave such intensity and sharpness to the pain in the head, that it required much resolution to continue it; nevertheless it was persevered in. After a few minutes, the pain diminished, and soon entirely ceased. This was followed by free perspiration, and equalized, warmth and circulation. Perfect repose and quiet sleep ensued. Friends, who a short time before had seen a countenance like that of a dying person, and knew how slow was ordinary cure, were astonished, an hour afterwards, to behold, on my awaking, the full glow of restored health.[6]

On the re-appearance of cholera, during the summer of 1849, my mind was peculiarly affected, from the belief that a false theory of circulation prevailed, although there was a true theory, which, if generally believed, might lead to the knowledge of the cause and cure of this terrific malady; and thus thousands of lives be saved which would otherwise be lost. This thought almost distracted me; and believing that my sex stood in the way of my theory's being acknowledged, I sometimes wished that it might please God to take me out of the world. Then coming to better thoughts; I cast away despondency as unworthy of me; and determined to proceed to the further investigation and development of the great truth, of which I had, as I believed, been made the unworthy recipient. I studied my theory anew, while I read the most approved works on cholera; and I came to the belief that imperfect respiration, caused by the want of due oxygen in the air, was the principal predisposing cause of the premonitory symptoms; while the death that supervened was often caused by the settling of carbonic acid gas, the residuum of animal combustion, in the lower air-cells of the lungs. The symptoms of the cholera, as treated by the best writers, were full of new proofs of the truth of my theory, especially of its last step, the formation of steam or vapor in the lungs. Without that, the collapse of cholera was a fearful mystery; with it, everything was plain. With a coldness that would collapse the lungs, the bowels must naturally be drawn up (and with dreadful pains) to supply their place. The ghastly change in the face must occur when cold has condensed its arterial vapor. If respiration could restore heat, before any lesions had taken place in the organism, the patient might recover. Then I began rewriting my theory in a work afterwards published, with the title, "Respiration and its Effects, especially in relation to Asiatic Cholera and other Sinking Diseases."

While thus occupied, the debilitating air of the season weighed upon my health and spirits. I had been affected for about three days with what I regarded as the ordinary complaints of the season, when one night, after my family had retired, I found myself suddenly very ill--my symptoms being coldness, debility, and spasmodic pains. I believed myself to be attacked with cholera. I efficiently practised the artificial respiration in fresh air as before described. Gaining strength as I proceeded, I soon found a death-like coldness giving place to genial warmth. Violent exercise, with artificial breathing, was kept up some time, with such rests and full free breathings as nature required; after which, I slept, perspired profusely, and was well in the morning.

This was an occurrence which sunk deep into my mind; and the more so, as I could not speak much of it, for the truth was too improbable to be believed. But the successful issue of this, my first experiment upon the dreaded disease, prepared me to act with boldness and efficiency in a case which occurred in my own house about a week after.

On the 14th of August, 1849, Jane Phayre, an Irish woman in my service, of about twenty-five years of age, having been ill for four days with diarrhoea, was suddenly struck with what the French call cholera _foudroyant_--from fright. Alarmed by unwonted sounds near her window in a basement room, she mounted the window-seat to look out at the top sash, and found her face close to that of a man dying of cholera, who in his death-cramps was brought from a steamboat on a litter, and thus rested upon the pavement. The cover was lifted from his face, and the sight and the smell struck her with faintness and trembling; and with difficulty she reached her bed. I was called to go to her quickly by Eliza Fagan, who said that Jane was very bad. She had a clay-cold death-look, and a frightful blackness around her eyes. Her face, as I saw it, was livid, pinched in features, and corpse-like, and her pulse but a feeble flutter; and she seemed only to breathe from the top of her lungs. She tried, as she afterwards told me, to say, "I am dying," but her speech was husky and inarticulate. She says her sight and hearing were gone; and while Eliza and I were dragging her out of doors, she could not see the window, and did not feel her feet. We placed her in an upright position, with her back resting against a board-wall, a fresh breeze blowing full in her face. Her senses were now partially restored. I told her to breathe violently, for she must get the bad air out of her lungs and the good air in; and I showed her how she must do it. At first she said, "I can't, for something rises up in the inside." When I told her, sternly, that her life depended on it, and she must, she tried to obey me. At first, it gave her severe headache, but as soon as deep breathing was fairly begun, while I was watching her face with intense anxiety, the color changed from the clay-cold death-look to the full flush of the warm hue of life, and she joyfully exclaimed, "Oh! I feel well!"

When the removal of carbonic acid gas had made way for oxygen to be brought to the yet uninjured lungs, the carbon of the venous blood ignited, the motive power was furnished, the blood was again moved forward into the arterial system, and the dammed up venous current, receiving the suction force, rushed on so violently as at times nearly to produce suffocation; but the struggle was soon over, and the lungs, free both from carbonic acid gas and an unnatural quantity of venous blood, once more received pure air--and to the relieved sufferer respiration became delightful--the circulation passed freely through an unbroken system--and THE CHOLERA WAS CURED.

Was there, in the whole wide world, another person besides myself who would have taken such a living corpse, dragged it out of doors, and set it upright, on feet which could not feel, with the expectation that it might breathe out death, breathe in life, and be restored? The result is a proof, _a posteriori_; that the theory on which the experiment was made is true.

Other cases occurred, where, under different circumstances, cures of cholera were effected. One, as instantaneous, and in some respects as remarkable as that of Jane Phayre, was that of my friend and former pupil, Mrs. Gen. Gould, of Rochester, who sent for me, believing herself to be dying of cholera. I have her letter, which, by permission, is published in my work on Respiration; and also a letter from her physician, Dr. Bloss, of Troy, testifying that her disease was cholera, and that he had little hope of her restoration. This letter is published in the appendix of a report on my theory, read in Buffalo, August 8th, 1851, to a convention of the New York State Association of Teachers.

In my journeying to New York city, to attend their previous convention in August, 1850, an accident obliged me to walk for some distance, in the middle of a hot day. The convention sat in Hope Chapel, which was poorly ventilated; and in the evening, I sat under a large gas-burner. On entering my room at the New-York Hotel, which was on the ground floor, situated where the only air was from a confined, central enclosure, I perceived at the only window a strong smell of fresh paint from the outer walls, so that I was obliged to close it. Being excessively fatigued, I slept heavily--till at early dawn I awaked to find myself in a dying state. Attempting to move my arms, they were like lead by my side--and my breath was but a feeble gasp. Without the knowledge of my theory--my bane, as many of my friends have thought--I should then have had no antidote. But I knew where was the destroying agent, and what was the only means by which I had a chance of removing it; and I used the little strength I had left to breathe deeper, and then to strive for a better position. Long and doubtful was the struggle. It was ten o'clock when, with tottering steps, I got into a carriage, and sought the free fresh air, which enabled me to take a little food. In the evening, I went into the Teacher's Convention, having first ordered from my publisher a sufficient number of my books on Respiration to present one to each member; and then, at my request, a Committee of Investigation was appointed by the convention to report on my theory. They reported favorably to the succeeding convention at Buffalo, which adopted the report, and I published and circulated it. This committee I had been allowed to choose, and it consisted of my friend, Prof. Twiss--the first believer in the theory--and Mr. Fellows, that Professor of Natural Philosophy, who formerly assisted in making my apparatus.

Mr. Fellows carried the report to Buffalo, and when he read it in the convention, editors immediately came to him to request copies for the press. But, by the influence of physicians, they afterwards declined it when offered. It seemed to be the general plan of the regular faculty (in the Eastern, not the Western, States) to put the theory into a condition resembling the algide state of cholera, where it would die of coldness; but, by the aid of Divine Providence, it will, like its author, restore itself by its own inherent vitality--the vitality of immortal truth.

SECTION IV.

Proofs from Dr. Cartwright's Great Experiments on Alligators--Resuscitation of Dr. Ely's Child--Dr. Bowling, Editor of the Nashville Medical Journal, endorses Dr. Washington, who, in that journal, "crushes out" all Opposition to the Theory--Dr. Draper's Acknowledgment of it in New York--Homoeopathists--Conclusion.

TO DR. MARCY. Thus, for thirty years, had I maintained, not only without public support, but against discouragements, these great truths, of which I had been allowed for myself such life-giving evidence. But early in December, 1851, Dr. Cartwright, then of New Orleans, announced in a letter to me that he had publicly become my advocate. His name will ever be connected with the theory, on account of the remarkable experiments by which he demonstrated its truth. In the presence of eminent physicians, and other scientific persons, he resuscitated an alligator which had been killed by tying the trachea. After an hour, when neither fire nor the dissecting knife produced signs of pain, Dr. Dowler[7] laid bare the lungs and the heart. Then a hole was cut in the trachea, below the ligature, and a blow-pipe was introduced, which Professor Forshey[7] worked with violence. At length, a faint quivering of moving blood was seen in the diaphanous veins of the lungs. The inflating process being continued, the blood next began to run in streams from the lungs into the quiescent heart. The heart began first to quiver, then to pulsate; and signs of life elsewhere appearing, the animal began to move; and soon, strong men could not hold him. Again they bound him to the table, and kept the trachea tied until life was apparently extinct; when, again inflating his lungs, he so thoroughly revived that he became dangerous, snapping at everything, and breaking his cords. For the third time, the trachea was ligatured--the animal expired, and was resuscitated.

Dr. Cartwright says in his letter to me, published in the Boston Medical Journal, January 7th, 1852, "By this resuscitation, your theory of the motive power of the circulation of the blood was established beyond all doubt or dispute." "This vivisection clearly proved that the _primum mobile_ of the circulation, and the chief motive powers of the blood, are in the lungs, and not in the heart." Dr. Cartwright mentioned, in the same letter, a case in which his faith in my theory had saved the life of a breathless infant--inducing him to unwonted perseverance in inflating its lungs.

Able opposers to the theory, however, arose in New Orleans, some of whom believed that the resuscitation might have been effected by applications to the nerves. Dr. Cartwright procured, from Gen. Jackson's battle ground, another alligator, which was publicly killed and vivisected. The doctor's opponents first tried their means to bring the animal to life, and failed. Then he, by artificial respiration, restored the huge reptile as before;--thus proving that artificial respiration could restore suspended animation when nothing else could.

Dr. Ely was one who had opposed and written against the theory. In the meantime, his infant son had cholera, and expired. His medical friends had left him, and crape was tied to the handle of the front door. Standing by the side of his lifeless babe, Dr. Ely said to himself, "If this theory should be true, I might yet save my child." And profiting by the example of Dr. Cartwright in restoring the dead alligator, he restored his child to life. Remitting his efforts too soon--again the infant ceased to breathe. And again, and yet the third time, the father restored him--when the resuscitation proved complete; and months after, the child was living and in perfect health. Dr. Ely then came promptly forward, and, like a nobly honest man, reported the case as convincing evidence of a truth which he had formerly opposed.[8]

Whoever wishes to know the history of theories concerning the motive powers of the blood as they then stood, may learn them by looking over files of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, edited by Dr. J. V. C. Smith, for the years 1852-'53, and a part of 1854. Dr. Cartwright wrote for it during those years; and, encouraged by his protection, I frequently answered objections, which flowed in from various medical opponents. The objection derived from the foetal circulation, I answered thus, in the Journal, of May, 1852: "The change occurring at birth, so far from falsifying this theory, affords presumptive proof of its truth. When first the air enters the trachea of a new born infant, and animal combustion begins, the inflation of the lungs must open the vessels and vesicles prepared to receive the venous blood. To fill the new-made vacuum, the whole of the blood from the right ventricle rushes through the pulmonary tube, leaving none to go through the _ductus arteriosus_, thus made useless, and henceforth to be abolished. But what is to move the blood from the capillaries of the lungs? The heart's force, insufficient before without aid from the mother's respiration, is now divided, while its work is doubled. A new power must then be generated by the meeting of the air with the carbon of the blood, enkindled by the peculiar functional vitality of the lungs. Without such a power, no perceptible cause exists sufficient to move the blood onward to the left ventricle. But it is moved thither, and with a power which presses down and closes the valve of the _foramen ovale_, thus clearly manifesting that this current exceeds in force that in the right ventricle. Grant that the new function of respiration has furnished a new power, and this astonishing instantaneous metamorphosis from amphibious to mammalian life becomes perfectly intelligible, and the wisdom of the Creator is fully vindicated; showing that His work has been truly interpreted."