Air cell

“ On the right hand is the exterior of one of the lobes, and on the left hand are seen the branching tubes of the interior, through which the air we breathe passes to the exceedingly minute air-cells of which the lungs chiefly consist. Fig. 23 shows the outside of a cluster of these air-cells, and Fig. 24 is the inside view. The lining membrane of each air-cell is covered by a network of minute blood-vessels called capillaries which, magnified several hundred times, appear in the microscope as at Fig. ”

“ In short, if the surface-energy in a cell-air contact were half or less than half that in a contact between cell and cell, then it is obvious that our partition would tend to split, and give us a two-fold surface in contact with air, instead of the original boundary or interface between one cell and the other. ”

“ A spirometer or lung-measuring machine should be secured, and the patient should practise upon this night and morning, endeavoring each day to register from one to five cubic inches more than the previous day, until every air cell of the lungs is opened and the full capacity is reached, which should be about 315 cubic inches for the average man, and 250 for the woman of normal size. ”

“ At the same time the carbon dioxide which is being formed at the cells passes into the blood. An exchange of gases is thus taking place between the cells and the blood, similar to [pg 090] that taking place between the blood and the air. This exchange is known as internal, or cell, respiration. By internal respiration the oxygen reaches the place where it is to serve its purpose, and the carbon dioxide begins its movement toward the exterior of the body. This "breathing by the cells" is, therefore, the final and essential act of respiration. ”

“ How do the capillaries in the air-cells get their fresh oxygen?
The stationary air mingles with the tidal air at every breath. If you want to ventilate a room, you are not obliged to take a pair of bellows and drive out every bit of the old air in the room, and supply its place with new air: it will be enough if you open a window or a door and let in a draught of pure air across one corner, say, of the room. ”

“ The negative pole, or zinc, of the cell is connected to a ground wire. This is done by attaching to a gas or water pipe. The positive pole, or carbon, of the cell is connected to the aerial line. This aerial collector can be made in various ways, either by using a screen wire or numerous wires made in an open coil and hung in the air. File a V-shaped groove in the upper end of the carbon of the cell. Attach a small bent copper wire in the binding post that is attached to the zinc of the cell. In the bend of this wire and the V-shaped groove filed into the carbon, lay a needle. ”

“ Just think, there are 600,000,000 air cells in one pair of lungs, and 2,000 pores to a square inch of surface; so you see what quantities of air we must have, and what care we should take of our skin so all the little doors will open and shut right. ”

“ Animals that breathe air through lungs have little air cells, so very small that a human lung is said to contain 600 millions of them; and these lie in contact with the capillary circulation of the lung which receives the oxygen and gives out the carbon. Some air-breathers have no lungs, but merely spiracles or minute holes in the body through which the air enters, coming in contact with the circulation. ”

“ If the forced inspirations are often repeated, the air-cells, the action of which has thus been accidentally solicited, come in the end to associate regularly in the ordinary respiratory movements. They are then very quickly modified in the sense most favorable for efficient working, according to the law we have so often pointed out, of the adaptation of organs to the functions they perform. ”

“ How the cells get air.—When the blood reaches the capillaries around the cells of the body, the red blood cells give up some of the air to the cells. Thus each cell of the body gets some air, and so it breathes. The cells cannot reach the air themselves, and so the red blood cells bring it to them. We breathe so as to supply the cells with air.
105. What burning is.—When meat is put into a [Pg 62] hot stove it quickly burns, and passes off in smoke, and leaves only a little ashes. The ashes are the mineral parts of the meat. If the fire is very hot, you cannot see the smoke. ”

“ The Alveoli.—The alveoli, or air cells, are the small divisions of the infundibula (Fig. 36) . They are each about one one-hundredth of an inch (1/4 mm.) in diameter, being formed by the infolding of the infundibular wall. This wall, which has for its framework a thin layer of elastic connective tissue, supports a dense network of capillaries (Fig. 37) , and is lined by a single layer of cells placed edge to edge. By this arrangement the air within the alveoli is brought very near a large surface of blood, and the exchange of gases between the air and the blood is made possible. ”

“ This great extent of surface has been given for the purpose of multiplying the air-cells, of which there are about six hundred millions, and their office is to take the oxygen from the atmosphere, vitalize the blood, and send it back to the heart, and from thence to every part of the body. ”

“ Many of the air cells of the lungs become inactive by reason of incomplete breathing, and often become almost atrophied. One who has practised imperfect breathing for years will find it not so easy to stimulate all these ill-used air cells into activity all at once by the Complete Breath, but this exercise will do much toward bringing about the desired result, and is worth study and practice. ”

“ The threshold of liberty is thickly sown with misery and torment. The days are unbearable with nervous restlessness, the nights hideous with the hours of agonizing stillness,—the endless, endless hours. Feverishly I pace the cell. The day will pass, it must pass. With reverent emotion I bless the shamed sun as he dips beyond the western sky. One day nearer to the liberty that awaits me, with unrestricted sunshine and air and life beyond the hated walls of gray, out in the daylight, in the open. ”

“ This opening leads into the system of intercellular passageways among the working-cells, and thus provides for a free exchange of gaseous substances between the working-cells and the outside air. The guard-cells change form with the varying amounts of moisture in the air, and so regulate the size of the opening between them. ”

“ When the superficial cells have lost through evaporation a portion of their water, they partly collapse under the action of the air-pressure; but, like elastic bladders, they tend to resume their original form. This they can do only by drawing in either air or water from without. But since moist membranes are but little permeable by air, the cells draw from the cells farther toward the centre a portion of their liquid contents; these in turn draw on the cells farther down, and so on down to the roots. The author illustrates his theory by an apparatus which represents a chain of cells. ”

“ The special features of the respiration chamber are the ventilating-pipe system and openings for supplementary apparatus for absorption of water and carbon dioxide. The air entering the chamber is absolutely dry and is directed into the top of the chamber immediately above the head of the subject. The moisture given off from the lungs and skin and the expired gases all tend to mix readily with this dry air as it descends, and the final mixture of gases is withdrawn through an opening near the bottom of the chamber at the front. ”

“ This is so marked that I have seen persons in the bath tub who could bear no more than six Hill cells, diffused as was the current from these through the water and over the entire body; while on the other hand I have met with male patients on whom a current from thirty-two Stöhrer cells made not the slightest impression, and where I was compelled to supplement the current by that from a ten-cell quantity battery (zinc carbon elements 6 in. long by 41⁄2 wide) in order to make them realize the presence of a current. These gentlemen had no cutaneous anæsthesia. ”

“ Circulation and Respiration.—Does water have free access to the body cavity? Does the hydra have few or nearly all of its cells exposed to the water in which it lives? From its structure, decide whether it can breathe like a sponge or whether special respiratory cells are necessary to supply it with oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. Blood vessels are unnecessary for transferring oxygen and food from cell to cell. ”

“ It may be also pointed out that, history apart, our lung-cells at the present day are at another disadvantage as compared with all the other cells of the body, except those of the skin; and that is, that they are in constant contact with air, instead of being submerged in water. ”

“ Hook’s, in which he kept a dog alive, by a mere continued stream of fresh air passing through the lungs, without any such alternate motion of the chest as takes place in common respiration, that one principal use of the air, which is an electric per se, in respiration, is to restore to the blood, as it passes through the lungs, that electricity which it has lost in circulating through the body? ”

“ Yet in cases in which the mixture of more and less concentrated solutions is not attended with evolution or absorption of heat, the electromotive force must vanish in a cell of the kind considered, if it is determined simply by the diminution of energy in the cell. ”

“ Thus, for example, a human subject to be experimented upon may remain for an indefinite period within this cabinet, occupied in various ways, taking physical exercise, reading, engaged in creative mental labor, or sleeping. Meantime, air is supplied for respiration in measured quantities, and of a precisely determined composition, as regards chemical impurities, moisture, and temperature. The air after passing through the chamber being again analyzed, the exact constituents added to it as waste products of the human machine in action under varying conditions are determined. ”

“ If a light of small candle-power is required for periods of from a few minutes to about an hour, with fairly long intervals of rest, primary cells may be made a success. Large dry cells are useful for this purpose, but probably the most satisfactory cell is the sack Leclanché. ”

“ I fill my lungs with ordinary air and breathe through a glass tube across the electric beam. The condensation of the aqueous vapor of the breath is shown by the formation of a luminous white cloud of delicate texture. It is necessary to abolish this cloud, and this may be done by drying the breath previous to its entering into the beam; or still more simply, by warming the glass tube. When this is done the luminous track of the beam is for a time uninterrupted. The breath impresses upon the floating matter a transverse motion, but the dust from the lungs makes good the particles displaced. ”

“ The statement has been made that "every active living cell is essentially an electric battery," and it is believed that every activity of living matter, such as the rhythmic contraction of the heart, the passage of a nerve impulse, etc., is accompanied by an electric disturbance in the protoplasm of the tissues in question. ”

“ Another method of increasing absorption from the cellular membrane is by warm air, or by warm steam. If the swelled legs of a dropsical patient are inclosed in a box, the air of which is made warm by a lamp or two, copious sweats are soon produced by the increased action of the capillary glands, which are seen to stand on the skin, as it cannot readily exhale in so small a quantity of air, which is only changed so fast as may be necessary to permit the lamps to burn. ”

“ The cells are so connected by pipes and valves that the liquid can be passed into the cells, and from cell to cell, at the pleasure of the operator. The bottom of each cell consists of a door, which closes on an annular rubber hose placed in a groove, and filled with water, under a pressure greater than that ever given to the liquids in the cell. ”