The mind, excited by new and great thoughts, works with unwonted energy;
and mine at once collected so many proofs, that I became perfectly
convinced of the truth of the hypothesis. In searching books, I found
that Lavoisier had taught the same; but he dying, his doctrine was
discarded by English chemists, Dr. Black leading the way, and therefore
it did not then appear in English systems of chemistry. But from that
time, I cherished it with a mother's devotion, watched changes in my own
physical frame relating to it, taught it to my pupils, and held warm
disputes with the medical faculty, who opposed and contemned it.
In the summer of 1832, the Asiatic cholera appeared among us, appalling
every heart. This plague, I said, is a disease of coldness and
obstruction; and these doctors, wrong as they are on the subject of
animal heat, can never understand it--though, if Lavoisier were living,
he might. Let me, then, as best I may, consider anew the problem of heat
as produced by respiration, and see whether I cannot find out something
which has a bearing on the fatal coldness of this fearful disease. It is
into the lungs, and no where else, that breathing introduces atmospheric
air; and it is there that the oxidation of carbon or animal combustion
takes place.
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