Practical observations on the use of oxygen, or vital air, in the cure of diseases. To which are added a few experiments on the vegetation of plants. Part I / By D. Hill.

  • Hill, Daniel.
Date:
1800
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical observations on the use of oxygen, or vital air, in the cure of diseases. To which are added a few experiments on the vegetation of plants. Part I / By D. Hill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    highest gratification of the human, mind. Such will do well, to peiusc a book entitled, c Morsels of Criticism tending to elucidate some few pas- sages in Scripture upon Philosophical Principles, wiitten by C. King, esq*. Whoever will candidly examine the mosaic account of the creation, as * f And God said, let there he formed a strengthening [or co n s o i. idating] sub- stance [or atmospherical air] in the midst of the water. And let it be a means of separating through the midst, (or of dividing,) between water, and water. And it was so. * Philosophical discoveries have oflate years convinced us, that air is the great band, and support, both of animal and vegetable life ; and that it is even itself reduced to a most solid and fxed state; so as to form a most solid part, and even the greatest part of the substance of almost every thing existing on earth. And, moreover, that it is even the very means of consolidating and binding the other component parts together. ‘ Dr. Stephen Hales was one of the first who began to examine and to consider rightly the nature and properties of air. And he soon discovered, by means of a very simple plain ex- periment*, that, in consequence of breathing, a great quantity of air, in its passage to and from the lungs, is much altered in its nature, and reduced from an elastic, to a fixed state. He discovered also, further, that plants imbibe vast quantities of air ; not only from the earth beneath, through their roots; but also from the atmosphere itself, through the surface of their trunks, and leaves f ; and more especially at night. And that it freely enters the vessels of trees, in very great abundance, and is even (as he expresses it J) wrought into their substance. 1 And at last also, he even found reason to conclude, in the most satisfactory manner, that air alone makes a very considerable part of the solid substance both of vegetables, and of plants of all kinds; and of animals §. And that there is even much more of it in their solid and most fixed parts, than in their fluid parts ||. * After all these discoveries; that most curious and accurate philosopher, Mr. Cavendish, investigated the matter still further : and, having had reason to conclude, that all animal and vegetable substances contain fxed air; he at last found, that vegetables consist almost entirely of fxed and phlogistic at-ed air, and some watery. And he had even reason to be ‘ * Statical Essays, Vol. II. p. 323. f Ibid. Vol. I. p. 159, 326. J Ibid. Vol. II. p. 267. ‘ § Vegetable Statics, Vol. I. p. 216. || Ibid. Vol. I. p. 301, 311, and Vol. II. p. 27S. * Phil. Trans. Vol. LXX1V. p. 150, 152, persuaded.