________________
152
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF YOGAM
It is not generally supposed that the lungs have any specific action in renewing the oxygen of the blood.
" Essentially a lung, or gill, is constructed of a fine transparent membrane, one surface of which is exposed to the air or water, as the case may be, while on the other is a net work of blood-vessels,--the only separation between the blood and the aerating medium being the thin wall of the blood vessels and of the fine membrane on the side of which the vessels are distributed ......... The lungs are only the medium of exchange, on the part of the blood, of carbonic acid for oxygen."-(Kirke's Hand-book of Physiology, 1884, pp. 214, 215). But these conditions are also present in the skin, which is likewise an animal meinbrane containing blood-vessels, and necessarily subject to the law of the diffusion of gases, though, as it is thicker than the lung membrane, and nature always seeks the easiest road, under the ordinary conditions in the case of human beings the action of the skin in respiration is very slight. But “under certain circumstances of arrest of the action of the lungs, the amount (of carbonic acid) passed off by the skin becomes notably increased. Holding the breath in summer quickly induces perspiration in many persons. In fact, when the exhalation of carbonic acid by the lungs is interferred with, the skin passes it off," (Fothergill : The Practitioner's Hand-book, 1867, p. 61). “Moreover it has been observed not unfrequently that the livid tint of the skin which supervenes in
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
