MAGNUS, GUSTAV. - FUNDAMENTAL FACTS ABOUT RESPIRATION.

Ueber die im Blut erhaltenen Gase, Sauerstoff, Stickstoff und Kohlensäure.

Leipzig, Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1837. Without wrappers as issued in "Annalen der Physik und Chemie. Hrsg. von J.C. Poggendorff", 40. Bd., 4. issue ("Heft" No 4, 1837). Titlepage to vol. 40. Pp. 497-644 a. 1 engraved plate. (entire issue "Heft" 4 offered). Magnus' paper: pp. 583-606, 1 woodcut in the text. Clean and fine.

First printing of a classic paper in physiology in which Magnus concludes that RESPIRATION TAKES PLACES IN THE TISSUES. After he had analyzed gases in the blood he found that there was a higher concentration of oxygen in the blood flowing in arteries than that flowing in the veins, thus being the "First quantitative analysis of the blood gases" (Garrison & Morton, No. 929).

"In this paper Magnus determines that the oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide content of the arterial and venous blood of horses. He introduces blood into mercury in a funnel and, by repeatedly applying nergative pressure, he liberates the gases from the blood. The mercury seal maintains the anaerobic conditions when transferring the gases to a eudiometer for analysis. Magnus finds a positive arterio-venous difference for oxygen and a negative difference for carbon dioxide. rom this he concludes that carbon dioxide is added not in the lungs but during circulation. he also calculates the balance of carbon dioxide, assuming values for the cardiac output and carbon dioxide elimination and the measured arterio-venous difference. This is the first use of what later came to be called Fich's principle."(Gedeon "Science and Technology in Medicine" Nr. 37).

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