Breathing

An Inspired History

Edgar Williams

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781789143621
• eBook ISBN: 9781789143638
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: World History

Our knowledge of breathing has shaped our social history and philosophical beliefs since prehistory. Breathing occupied a spiritual status for the ancients, while today it is central to the practice of many forms of meditation, like Yoga. Over time physicians, scientists, and engineers have pieced together the intricate biological mechanisms of breathing to devise ever more sophisticated devices to support and maintain breathing indefinitely, from iron lungs to the modern ventilator. Breathing supplementary oxygen has allowed us to conquer Everest, travel to the Moon, and dive to ever greater ocean depths. We all expect to breathe fresh and clean air, but with an increase in air pollution that expectation is no longer being met. Today, respiratory viruses like COVID-19 are causing disasters both human and economical on a global scale. This is the story of breathing—a tale relevant to everyone.

REFERENCES

ONE: THE BREATH OF LIFE

1Donald E. Canfield, Oxygen: A Four Billion Year History (Princeton, NJ, 2014), pp. 196, 156.

2Connie C. W. Hsia et al., ‘Evolution of Air Breathing: Oxygen Homeostasis and the Transitions from Water to Land and Sky’, Comparative Physiology, III (2013), pp. 849–915.

3Sarah K. Griffiths and Jeremy P. Campbell, ‘Placental Structure, Function and Drug Transfer’, Continuing Education in Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Pain, XV (2015), pp. 84–9.

4J. G. Nijhuis et al., ‘The Rhythmicity of Fetal Breathing Varies with Behavioural State in the Human Fetus’, Early Human Development, IX (1983), pp. 1–7.

5Peter Lewis and Peter Boylan, ‘Fetal Breathing: A Review’, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, CXXXIV (1979), pp. 587–98.

6Ibid.

7M. Obladen, ‘Pulmo Uterinus: A History of Ideas on Fetal Respiration’, Journal of Perinatal Medicine, XLI (2018), pp. 457–64.

8John Bostock, An Elementary System of Physiology, vol. II (London, 1826), p. 643.

9S. Joshi et al., ‘Exercise-induced Bronchoconstriction in School-aged Children Who Had Chronic Lung Disease in Infancy’, Journal of Pediatrics, CLXII (2013), pp. 813–18.

10Rhea Urs et al., ‘Persistent and Progressive Long-term Lung Disease in Survivors of Preterm Birth’, Paediatric Respiratory Reviews, XXVI (2018), pp. 87–94.

TWO: EARLY BELIEFS

1J. Kappelman et al., ‘First Homo Erectus From Turkey and Implications for Migration into Temperate Eurasia’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, CXXXV (2008), pp. 110–16.

2Jakub Kwiecinski, ‘Images of the Respiratory System in Ancient Egypt: Trachea, Bronchi and Pulmonary Lobes’, Canadian Respiratory Journal, XIX (2012) pp. 33–4.

3Ibid.

4Friedrich Solmsen, ‘The Vital Heat, the Inborn Pneuma and the Aether’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, LXXVII (1957), pp. 119–23.

5Ernest Best, ‘The Use and Non-use of Pneuma by Josephus’, Novum Testamentum, III (1959), pp. 218–25.

6Kishor Patwardhan, ‘The History of the Discovery of Blood Circulation: Unrecognized Contributions of Ayurveda Masters’, Advances in Physiology Education, XXXVI (2012), pp. 77–82.

7Aparna Singh, ‘Physiological Appraisal of Prana Vayu in Ayurvedic Literatures’, International Journal of Physiology, Nutrition and Physical Education, III (2018), pp. 2157–9.

8Pedzisai Mazengenya and Rashid Bhikha, ‘An Analysis of Historical Vignettes by Ibn Sina in the Canon of Medicine on the Structure and Function of the Cardiorespiratory Apparatus’, Archives of Iranian Medicine, XX (2017), pp. 386–8.

9Seyyed Mehdi Hashemi and Mohsin Raza, ‘The Traditional Diagnosis and Treatment of Respiratory Diseases: A Description From Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine’, Therapeutic Advances in Respiratory Disease, III (2009), pp. 319–28; John B. West, ‘Ibn Al-Nafis, the Pulmonary Circulation, and the Islamic Golden Age’, Journal of Applied Physiology, CV (2008), pp. 1877–80.

10Reinaldo Bulgarelli Bestetti et al., ‘Development of Anatomophysiologic Knowledge Regarding the Cardiovascular System: From Egypt to Harvey’, Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia, CIII (2014), 38S–45S.

11Bryan Gandevia, ‘The Breath of Life: An Essay on the Earliest History of Respiration. Part 1’, Australian Journal of Physiotherapy, XVI (1970), pp. 5–11.

12John W. Severinghaus, ‘Eight Sages over Five Centuries Share Oxygen’s Discovery’, Advances in Physiology Education, XL (2016), pp. 370–76.

13Concealed lung anatomy in Botticelli’s masterpieces The Primavera and the Birth of Venus. Davide Lazzeri, Acta Biomedica, LXXXVIII, (2017), pp. 502–9.

14Donald Fleming, ‘Galen on the Motions of the Blood in the Heart and Lungs’, Isis, XLVI (1955), pp. 14–21; Donald Fleming, ‘William Harvey and the Pulmonary Circulation’, Isis, XLVI (1955), pp. 319–27.

15Leonard G. Wilson, ‘The Transformation of Ancient Concepts of Respiration in the Seventeenth Century’, Isis, LI (1960), pp. 161–72.

16Lavoisier Antoine Laurent, Encyclopaedia Britannica (1971), vol. XIII, pp. 818–19.

17M. J. Eadie, ‘Robert Whytt and the Pupils’, Journal of Clinical Neuroscience, VII (2000), pp. 295–7.

18Char...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• ONE: THE BREATH OF LIFE
• TWO: EARLY BELIEFS
• THREE: INDUSTRY AND REVOLUTION
• FOUR: MIASMA AND BAD AIR
• FIVE: LABOURED BREATHING
• SIX: BREATHING HIGH AND LOW
• SEVEN: BREATHING FAST AND SLOW: BREATHE IN, BREATHE OUT
• EIGHT: INSPIRED BREATHING
• NINE: LAST GASP
• REFERENCES
• FURTHER READING
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• PHOTO ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INDEX