19. CHANGES IN THE BLOOD FROM RESPIRATION.--The most striking change which the blood undergoes by its passage through the lungs, is the change of color from a dark blue to bright red. That this change is dependent upon respiration has been fully proved by experiment. If the trachea, or windpipe, of a living animal be so compressed as to exclude the air from the lungs, the blood in the arteries will gradually grow darker, until its color is the same as that of the venous blood. When the pressure is removed the blood speedily resumes its bright hue. Again, if the animal be made to breathe an atmosphere containing more oxygen than atmospheric air, the color changes from scarlet to vermilion, and becomes even brighter than arterial blood. This change of color is not of itself a very important matter, but it indicates a most important change of composition. [Sidenote: 20. What does the air lose and gain by respiration? What, the blood? Air as food?] 20. The air, as we have seen, by respiration loses oxygen and gains carbonic acid: the blood, on the contrary, gains oxygen and loses carbonic acid. The oxygen is the food of the blood corpuscles; while the articles we eat and drink belong more particularly to the plasma of the blood. The air, then, it is plain, is a sort of food, and we should {134} undoubtedly so regard it, if it were not for the fact that we require it constantly, instead of taking it at stated intervals, as is the case with our articles of diet. Again, as the demand of the system for food is expressed by the sensation of hunger, so the demand for air is marked by a painful sensation called suffocation. [Sidenote: 21. Moist animal membranes? How shown with the bladder?] 21. INTERCHANGE OF GASES IN THE LUNGS.--As the air and the blood are not in contact, they being separated from each other by the walls of the air-cells and of the blood-vessels, how can the two gases, oxygen and carbonic acid, exchange places? Moist animal membranes have a property which enables them to transmit gases through their substance, although they are impervious to liquids. This may be beautifully shown by suspending a bladder containing dark blood in a jar of oxygen. At the end of a few hours the oxygen will have disappeared, the blood will be brighter in color, and carbonic acid will be found in the jar. [Sidenote: 22. Gaseous diffusion? If oxygen be not received? If carbonic acid be retained?] 22. If this interchange takes place outside of the body, how much more perfectly must it take place within, where it is favored by many additional circumstances! The walls of the vessels and the air-cells offer no obstacle to this process, which is known as gaseous diffusion. Both parts of the process are alike of vital importance. If oxygen be not received, the organs cease to act; and if carbonic acid be retained in the blood, its action is that of a poison; unconsciousness, convulsions, and death following.