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ture still continuing, and probably increasing, more and more air becomes extravasate, until, as in the present case, the quantity becomes so great, as not only to impede the course of the blood through the lungs, but the internal pressure of the extravasate air prevents the ingress of a quantity of fresh air, sufficient to cool and attenuate the blood. In fact, a small part only of the lungs is employed; as the extravasate air, though still in an elastic state, answers by no means the purposes of fresh air in respiration; as the former, by its confinement in the lungs, is very soon devested of its vivifying spirit, that principle which is soon destroyed in animal bodies, and which some chemical physiologists have supposed to be an acid nitrous Gas, and is most essential to human life. Hence, in a very short time, the effects are too obvious to be mentioned; and death must soon follow, as happened to the person, who is the subject of this communication.
July 6, 1764.
