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.”

In the Boston Journal, of April 21st, 1852, is an article from Dr. Cartwright, entitled “Confirmation of the Willardian, or Important American Discovery,” in which the author endeavors to remove what doubtless has been one cause of the delay in acknowledging its truth. “Those members of the profession,” he says, “whom science has only perfumed, are the most apt ‘to look down with proud disdain’ on any discovery originating ‘with individuals not indoctrinated.’ They do not make the proper distinction between selfish quacks who seek publicity ‘to line the pocket,’ and those ‘who, prompted by some mysterious power,’ come forward against their interest, and at the risk of their reputation. ‘Rather than to contemn and ridicule, it were better to study the manifestations of that mysterious power.’ They do not consider that the truth thus brought to light, while they fail to acknowledge it, is affording ‘to selfish quackery’ a capital to trade on.”

To the same effect is the advice given to the profession by Dr. B. F. Washington, of Hannibal, Mo. He says, in the Nashville Journal of Medicine, July, 1854, “it is time for us to be acting; the honor of the profession is in danger. The theory of respiration is a truth which will cut its way; and if we do not take it up and teach it, in a few years we may see the mortifying spectacle of the community teaching the profession scientific truths. Quacks have already taken it up, and we have inhalers and air cures of various kinds.”[9]

The first appearance of Dr. Washington as the advocate of my theory was in the Nashville Journal, March, 1854; and his fertile genius had there brought a new illustration of its truth. It had, he said, opened his eyes to the explanation of a fact which had puzzled him from his boyhood. “In slaughtering animals, if the trachea was cut, scarcely any hæmorrhage resulted; while, if that was left untouched, full hæmorrhage occurred. By the Willardian theory, the fact is readily susceptible of explanation. The blood, filling the trachea, suspended respiration, and of course the impelling power of the blood was suspended, and the hæmorrhage ceased. The engine could not work without steam. When the trachea was not cut, respiration went on, and kept up the circulation, until the animal was nearly exsanguineous, and the powers of life gave way.” This fact was clearly ascertained by Dr. W. K. Bowling, the well-known editor of the Nashville Journal, and able professor of the theory and practice of medicine in the university of that place. He sent me the Journal containing this welcome endorsement of my theory from one who was, as Dr. Bowling assured me, “an observer of superior tact and learning,” known by his medical compositions as well in Europe as America. Since that time (March, 1854), that Journal, though not excluding articles which oppose, has been understood to be in favor of the theory. Dr. Washington has written repeatedly, answering all objections;[10] and he has, in the Journal (as I have been assured by one of the Editors), “crushed out all that would take up his glove, and is left in undisputed possession of the field—looking in vain for an opponent.”

In the meantime, in 1856, Dr. J. N. Draper, Professor of Chemistry and Physiology in the University of New-York, in an elaborate work on “Human Physiology,” has agreed that Harvey’s theory of the paramount power of the heart’s action in the circulation must be abandoned; and that to respiration must be assigned “the great duty of originating the blood’s circulation.”[11]

Dr. Washington has not only defended me in every important position which I have taken, and added new illustrations—but he has made the theory available to showing new proofs of the wisdom of God in the creation of man. Thus—steam is formed in the vacuum of the lungs at the low temperature of 67°, while, if there were no vacuum, 212° of heat would be required to produce it,—an impossible quantity, since it would coagulate the albumen of the blood. But form the vacuum, and the boiling of the blood with any degree of heat less than 101° could not cause any such disaster, while the steam going off from the lungs through the arterial system to the capillaries, gradually condenses, warming the body by giving off its latent heat; and the latent heat of vapor is the same however it is formed, and is always 1,114°. What divine wisdom and economy are thus displayed!

Homœopathy has, we believe, never found any difficulty in receiving this theory. We know that, at one of its conventions held in Providence, it was ably supported; and Dr. Marcy, whom I have the honor to address, was, as we have seen, one of its earliest defenders. He has never, whether allopathist or homœopathist, been known to hesitate when his own mind brought him clear conclusions;—the distinguishing mark, according to Dugald Stewart, of intrepidity of character.

With profound respect,
Emma Willard.