Note g — BOOK IV.

I shall not here intrench so much upon the Anatomist’s Province, to give a Description of the Lungs, although it be a curious Piece of God’s Workmanship; but refer to Seignior Malpighi, the first Discoverer of their Vesiculæ in 1660, in his two Letters to Borelli de Pulmon. Also to Dr. Willis’s Pharm. Rat. p. 2. S. 1. c. 1. de Respir. Orig. & Us. who as he wrote after Malpighi, so hath more accurately described those parts; and to Mr. Cowper’s Anat. Tab. 24, 25. And if the Reader hath a Mind to see what Opposition Seignior Malpighi’s Discoveries met with at Home and Abroad, and what Controversies he had on that Account, as also his Censures of Dr. Willis’s Descriptions and Figures, he may consult Malpighi’s Life written by himself, pag. 4 to 21.

That the Lungs consist of Vesiculæ, or Lobuli of Vesiculæ admitting of Air from the Bronchi, is visible, because they may be blown up, cleansed of Blood, and so dried. But Mr. Cowper saith, he could never part the Lobuli, (so as to make Dr. Willis’s Fig. 1. Tab. 3. & 4.) so that probably the Vesiculæ are contiguous to one another throughout each Lobe of the Lungs. And not only Air; but Diemerbroeck proves, that the Vesiculæ admit of Dust also, from two asthmatick Persons he opened; one a Stonecutter’s Man, the Vesiculæ of whose Lungs were so stuffed with Dust, that in cutting, his Knife went as if through an Heap of Sand; the other was a Feather-driver, who had these Bladders filled with the fine Dust or Down of Feathers.