Proofs from Dr.Cartwright’s Great Experiments on Alligators—Resuscitation of Dr.Ely’s Child—Dr.Bowling, Editor of the Nashville Medical Journal, endorses Dr.Washington, who, in that journal, “crushes out” all Opposition to the Theory—Dr.Draper’s Acknowledgment of it in New York—Homoeopathists—Conclusion.

To Dr.Marcy. Thus, for thirty years, had I maintained, not only without public support, but against discouragements, these great truths, of which I had been allowed for myself such life-giving evidence. But early in December, 1851, Dr.Cartwright, then of New Orleans, announced in a letter to me that he had publicly become my advocate. His name will ever be connected with the theory, on account of the remarkable experiments by which he demonstrated its truth. In the presence of eminent physicians, and other scientific persons, he resuscitated an alligator which had been killed by tying the trachea. After an hour, when neither fire nor the dissecting knife produced signs of pain, Dr.Dowler[7] laid bare the lungs and the heart. Then a hole was cut in the trachea, below the ligature, and a blow-pipe was introduced, which Professor Forshey[7] worked with violence. At length, a faint quivering of moving blood was seen in the diaphanous veins of the lungs. The inflating process being continued, the blood next began to run in streams from the lungs into the quiescent heart. The heart began first to quiver, then to pulsate; and signs of life elsewhere appearing, the animal began to move; and soon, strong men could not hold him. Again they bound him to the table, and kept the trachea tied until life was apparently extinct; when, again inflating his lungs, he so thoroughly revived that he became dangerous, snapping at everything, and breaking his cords. For the third time, the trachea was ligatured—the animal expired, and was resuscitated.

Dr.Cartwright says in his letter to me, published in the Boston Medical Journal, January 7th, 1852, “By this resuscitation, your theory of the motive power of the circulation of the blood was established beyond all doubt or dispute.” “This vivisection clearly proved that the primum mobile of the circulation, and the chief motive powers of the blood, are in the lungs, and not in the heart.” Dr.Cartwright mentioned, in the same letter, a case in which his faith in my theory had saved the life of a breathless infant—inducing him to unwonted perseverance in inflating its lungs.

Able opposers to the theory, however, arose in New Orleans, some of whom believed that the resuscitation might have been effected by applications to the nerves. Dr.Cartwright procured, from Gen. Jackson’s battle ground, another alligator, which was publicly killed and vivisected. The doctor’s opponents first tried their means to bring the animal to life, and failed. Then he, by artificial respiration, restored the huge reptile as before;—thus proving that artificial respiration could restore suspended animation when nothing else could.

Dr.Ely was one who had opposed and written against the theory. In the meantime, his infant son had cholera, and expired. His medical friends had left him, and crape was tied to the handle of the front door. Standing by the side of his lifeless babe, Dr.Ely said to himself, “If this theory should be true, I might yet save my child.” And profiting by the example of Dr.Cartwright in restoring the dead alligator, he restored his child to life. Remitting his efforts too soon—again the infant ceased to breathe. And again, and yet the third time, the father restored him—when the resuscitation proved complete; and months after, the child was living and in perfect health. Dr.Ely then came promptly forward, and, like a nobly honest man, reported the case as convincing evidence of a truth which he had formerly opposed.[8]

Whoever wishes to know the history of theories concerning the motive powers of the blood as they then stood, may learn them by looking over files of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, edited by Dr.J.V.C. Smith, for the years 1852-’53, and a part of 1854. Dr.Cartwright wrote for it during those years; and, encouraged by his protection, I frequently answered objections, which flowed in from various medical opponents. The objection derived from the foetal circulation, I answered thus, in the Journal, of May, 1852: “The change occurring at birth, so far from falsifying this theory, affords presumptive proof of its truth. When first the air enters the trachea of a new born infant, and animal combustion begins, the inflation of the lungs must open the vessels and vesicles prepared to receive the venous blood. To fill the new-made vacuum, the whole of the blood from the right ventricle rushes through the pulmonary tube, leaving none to go through the ductus arteriosus, thus made useless, and henceforth to be abolished. But what is to move the blood from the capillaries of the lungs? The heart’s force, insufficient before without aid from the mother’s respiration, is now divided, while its work is doubled. A new power must then be generated by the meeting of the air with the carbon of the blood, enkindled by the peculiar functional vitality of the lungs. Without such a power, no perceptible cause exists sufficient to move the blood onward to the left ventricle. But it is moved thither, and with a power which presses down and closes the valve of the foramen ovale, thus clearly manifesting that this current exceeds in force that in the right ventricle. Grant that the new function of respiration has furnished a new power, and this astonishing instantaneous metamorphosis from amphibious to mammalian life becomes perfectly intelligible, and the wisdom of the Creator is fully vindicated; showing that His work has been truly interpreted.”

In the Boston Journal, of April 21st, 1852, is an article from Dr.Cartwright, entitled “Confirmation of the Willardian, or Important American Discovery,” in which the author endeavors to remove what doubtless has been one cause of the delay in acknowledging its truth. “Those members of the profession,” he says, “whom science has only perfumed, are the most apt ‘to look down with proud disdain’ on any discovery originating ‘with individuals not indoctrinated.’ They do not make the proper distinction between selfish quacks who seek publicity ‘to line the pocket,’ and those ‘who, prompted by some mysterious power,’ come forward against their interest, and at the risk of their reputation. ‘Rather than to contemn and ridicule, it were better to study the manifestations of that mysterious power.’ They do not consider that the truth thus brought to light, while they fail to acknowledge it, is affording ‘to selfish quackery’ a capital to trade on.”

To the same effect is the advice given to the profession by Dr.B.F. Washington, of Hannibal, Mo. He says, in the Nashville Journal of Medicine, July, 1854, “it is time for us to be acting; the honor of the profession is in danger. The theory of respiration is a truth which will cut its way; and if we do not take it up and teach it, in a few years we may see the mortifying spectacle of the community teaching the profession scientific truths. Quacks have already taken it up, and we have inhalers and air cures of various kinds.”[9]

The first appearance of Dr.Washington as the advocate of my theory was in the Nashville Journal, March, 1854; and his fertile genius had there brought a new illustration of its truth. It had, he said, opened his eyes to the explanation of a fact which had puzzled him from his boyhood. “In slaughtering animals, if the trachea was cut, scarcely any hÆmorrhage resulted; while, if that was left untouched, full hÆmorrhage occurred. By the Willardian theory, the fact is readily susceptible of explanation. The blood, filling the trachea, suspended respiration, and of course the impelling power of the blood was suspended, and the hÆmorrhage ceased. The engine could not work without steam. When the trachea was not cut, respiration went on, and kept up the circulation, until the animal was nearly exsanguineous, and the powers of life gave way.” This fact was clearly ascertained by Dr.W.K. Bowling, the well-known editor of the Nashville Journal, and able professor of the theory and practice of medicine in the university of that place. He sent me the Journal containing this welcome endorsement of my theory from one who was, as Dr.Bowling assured me, “an observer of superior tact and learning,” known by his medical compositions as well in Europe as America. Since that time (March, 1854), that Journal, though not excluding articles which oppose, has been understood to be in favor of the theory. Dr.Washington has written repeatedly, answering all objections;[10] and he has, in the Journal (as I have been assured by one of the Editors), “crushed out all that would take up his glove, and is left in undisputed possession of the field—looking in vain for an opponent.”

In the meantime, in 1856, Dr.J.N. Draper, Professor of Chemistry and Physiology in the University of New-York, in an elaborate work on “Human Physiology,” has agreed that Harvey’s theory of the paramount power of the heart’s action in the circulation must be abandoned; and that to respiration must be assigned “the great duty of originating the blood’s circulation.”[11]

Dr.Washington has not only defended me in every important position which I have taken, and added new illustrations—but he has made the theory available to showing new proofs of the wisdom of God in the creation of man. Thus—steam is formed in the vacuum of the lungs at the low temperature of 67°, while, if there were no vacuum, 212° of heat would be required to produce it,—an impossible quantity, since it would coagulate the albumen of the blood. But form the vacuum, and the boiling of the blood with any degree of heat less than 101° could not cause any such disaster, while the steam going off from the lungs through the arterial system to the capillaries, gradually condenses, warming the body by giving off its latent heat; and the latent heat of vapor is the same however it is formed, and is always 1,114°. What divine wisdom and economy are thus displayed!

Homoeopathy has, we believe, never found any difficulty in receiving this theory. We know that, at one of its conventions held in Providence, it was ably supported; and Dr.Marcy, whom I have the honor to address, was, as we have seen, one of its earliest defenders. He has never, whether allopathist or homoeopathist, been known to hesitate when his own mind brought him clear conclusions;—the distinguishing mark, according to Dugald Stewart, of intrepidity of character.

With profound respect,
Emma Willard.

[1] It is here seen what an important work this theory does for the venous circulation, and why the blood moves into the lungs. We have read of a theory which maintains that it goes there because there is a mutual attraction between it and the capillaries of the lungs. But there is none between the water in our tube and that in the tin vessel where water is boiling; but it goes into it with a rush notwithstanding. Because there is a strong suction power produced by expansion, no other attraction is needed. The apparatus, as here described, goes no farther than to represent the circulation in single-hearted animals. But in my work is a drawing which shows the left heart on the opposite of the mimic lungs from the right; and then how the same tube, by being folded in the form of a figure eight (8), shows the two hearts united into one, and both ventricles working by the same contractions to perform their different tasks.