Note 335 — PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. (continued 3)
Francis Adams translation
Aristotle inquires whether the atmosphere be a single substance or many, and if many, of how many it consists. (Meteorol., i., 3.) I may be allowed to remark in this place, that Galen’s ideas regarding respiration are wonderfully accurate, and not very different from those now entertained by the profession. Thus he compares the process of respiration to combustion, and says it produces the same change upon atmospheric air. He further agrees with modern physiologists in considering it as the vital operation by which the innate (or animal) heat is preserved. (De Respiratione.) Compare this treatise with Baron Cuvier’s admirable section on Respiration and observe on how many points these two great physiologists agree. (Leçons d’Anatom. Compar., 26.)