HUMAN RESPIRATION - Doctoral Thesis - Simão da Cunha Pereira - 1847
11 bicarbonate in the duration of the circulation, and the facto of the complement of the sanguification, that is, the super-oxidation and descarbonization of the hematin, as a while ago it was said, and, more than everything, the assimilation processes in the intimacy of all the organs. Against this theory of the breathing, that belongs to Magnus, got up Gay-Lussac, believing that to assure his theory should Magnus prove: first, that the veined blood contains more carbonic acid than the arterial; second, that the difference of the amounts of this acid between one and other blood satisfies the demands of the breathing; third, that the amount of the oxygen absorbed in the lungs by the blood when it is arterialized, and abandoned later in the circulatory itinerary, it satisfies the production of the carbonic acid and water equally in the act of breathing; finally the fourth, that the veined blood contains more nitrogen than the arterial one. Now, from the own board of experiences of Magnus one sees that the nitrogen and the carbonic acid exist in larger amount in the arterial that in the veined. Taking for base the amount of oxygen absorbed in the lungs, Gay-Lussac believes to prove with the calculation that it is not enough to supply the necessary to the formation of water and exhaled carbonic acid, and it advances that to reach those ends, it would be necessary that the blood contained more of oxygen than its own volume, since, according to own Magnus, there is still a little of the absorbed oxygen, after the formation of the carbonic acid and water, because one still finds it involved with the veined blood. Now, this solubility of the oxygen in the blood, twenty four times greater than the one of the same gas in the water, although it is not provedly impossible, it would be convenient, to be admitted it should be proven, or at least should become probable, which Magnus didn't do. Gay-Lussac, still not pleased with these attacks, took advantage of new data supplied by recent experiences of Bourgery, and handling them in the calculation, it shows the inadequacy of Magnus' experiences, to explain the breathing phenomena completely, and it insists that, being proven the larger amount of carbonic acid in the arterial blood that in the veined, his theory lacks a solid base, and then he deduces the need for a new exam of the chemical phenomena of the breathing, and it concludes promising to be in charge of it with Magendie. Now, the execution of that promise should be the beginning of his opposition, because, despite of it, subsists, one almost can to move forward, inconcussible the Magnus' theory, because the importance of his works consists in the demonstration of the existence in larger amount of oxygen in the arterial blood than in the veined, and this breakment of proportions is enough to explain the generality of the phenomena in subject. Nothing else remains that be indispensable to the proposed end in this thesis, end, that seems, it was reached, and, actually, of the whole exposed by rigorous deduction is concluded that the breathing phenomenon it is all strange to the direct influence of the life, subject to the physico-chemical laws, consisting essentially of a exchange of gases. |