Excerpt from Respiration

When Yale University invited me to deliver the Silliman Lectures for 1915 I was asked to deal with the physiology of breathing and include a general account Of the long series of investigations with which I had been associated on this subject and its practical applications in clinical medicine and hygiene. Owing to the war I was unable to give the lectures in 1915, but in 1916 delivered four lectures which dealt only with some Of the more general conclu sions to which I had been led, and were published early in 1917 by the Yale University Press under the title Organism and Environment as Illustrated by the Physiology Of Breathing.

The war has greatly delayed the appearance Of the present book, which treats the physiology Of breathing fully in accordance with the original plan. I have, however, abandoned the lecture form, and what I had written four years ago has had to be largely recast owing to the rapid advance Of knowledge. The book is not a mere compilation, but contains much that has never previously been published, and is an attempt to give a coherent statement and interpretation Of what is known Of the subject at present. I fear that I may sometimes have unwittingly overlooked Observa tions by others which would have added completeness to my account. Yet I hope that what may have been lost in this way will be made up for by the fact that the book embodies the results Of a continuous series Of investigations leading to very definite and consistent conclusions.

About the middle Of last century the younger physiologists broke away from the vitalistic traditions which had been handed down to them, and set about to investigate living organisms piece by piece, precisely as they would investigate the working of a complex mechanism. This method seemed to them to promise success, and was popularized by such masters Of clear and force ful expression as Huxley. It is still the orthodox method Of physi ology, but the Old confidence in it has steadily diminished in proportion as exact experimental investigation has shown that the various activities Of a living organism cannot be interpreted in isolation from one another, since organic regulation dominates them. The keynote of this book is the organic regulation Of breathing and its associated phenomena.

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