The anatomy of the human lung : an essay, for which was awarded the Fothergillian gold medal of the Medical Society of London / by A.T. Houghton Waters.

  • Waters, A. T. Houghton (Alderman Thomas Houghton), 1826-1912.
Date:
1860
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The anatomy of the human lung : an essay, for which was awarded the Fothergillian gold medal of the Medical Society of London / by A.T. Houghton Waters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    imperfect notion prevailed of the intimate structure of the human lung. Unable to follow the bronchial tubes to their termination by the unaided eye, our ancestors believed that the tissue, or parenchyma of the lung, was of a spumous or spongy character, and that in it the air became mingled with the blood. The discovery of the circulation created a new era in anatomical science. Malpighi, profiting by the improved knowledge of his day, by means of mer- curial injections into the blood-vessels of the lungs, and by inflation of their tissue, proved that there was no communication between the vessels and the air tubes, and demonstrated the existence of a system of vesicles, in connection with the ultimate bronchial ramifications. In 1661 he published two letters, addressed to Borel, in which his observations on the lungs will be found. By diligent research he recog- nised that the whole mass of the lungs, held together by vessels running through it, was an aggregation of very fine and thin membranes, which, by their exten- sion and tortuous course, formed an almost infinite number of orbicular and sinuous vesicles, in the same manner as we see wax spread out to form the parietes of the cells of the honeycomb. These vesicles, he said, had a communication with the trachea, and with one another.* When examined with magnifying power, these vesicles appeared to him to be formed by the attenu- * “ Diligenti enim indagine adinveni totam pulmonum mo’.em, quce vasis excurrentibus appenditur esse aggregatum quid ex levissitnis, et tenuissimis membranis, quoe extens®, et sinuate penfe infinites vesiculas orbiculares, et sinuosas efformant, veluti