The history of our knowledge of the nervous and muscular mechanisms of respiration

Abstract

Respiration is the gaseous exchange between an organism and its environment; the taking in of oxygen and the giving out of carbon dioxide. Oxygen in the free state is necessary for all living matter (except the anaerobic organisms), and carbon dioxide is a universal product.Respiration has always, therefore, provoked the curiosity of man. It had long been known that closure of the trachea produced death, but why it should be so was the ground for much discussion and many theories. The true nature of respiration was appreciated only with the discovery of the composition of the air in the 18th century.