423. The quantity of air expelled from the lung by an ordinary expiration is probably a very little less than that received by an ordinary inspiration ([456]).
424. No one is able by a voluntary effort to expel the whole contents of the lungs. Observation and experiment lead to the conclusion that the lungs, when moderately distended, contain at a medium about twelve pints of air. As one pint is inhaled at an ordinary inspiration, and somewhat less than the same volume is expelled at an ordinary expiration ([456]), there remain present in the lungs, at a minimum, eleven pints of air. There is one act of respiration to four pulsations of the heart; and, as in the ordinary state of health there are seventy-two pulsations, so there are eighteen respirations in a minute, or 25,920 in the twenty-four hours.
425. About two ounces of blood are received by the heart at each dilatation of the auricles; about the same quantity is expelled from it at each contraction of its ventricles; consequently, as the heart dilates and contracts seventy-two times in a minute, it sends thus often to the lungs, there to be acted upon by the air, two ounces of blood. It is estimated by Haller that 10,527 grains of blood occupy the same space as 10,000 grains of water, so that if one cubic inch of water weigh 253 grains, the same bulk of blood will weigh 266⅓ grains.
426. It is ordinarily estimated that on an average one circuit of the blood is performed in 150 seconds; but it is shown (451 and 452) that the quantity of air always present in the lungs contains precisely a sufficient quantity of oxygen to oxygenate the blood, while flowing at the ordinary rate of 72 contractions of the heart per minute, for the exact space of 160 seconds. It is therefore highly probable that this interval of time, 160 seconds, is the exact period in which the blood performs one circuit, and not 150 seconds, as former observations had assigned. If this be so, then 540 circuits are performed in the twenty-four hours; that is, there are three complete circulations of the blood through the body in every eight minutes of time.
427. But it has been shown ([425]) that the weight of the blood is to that of water as 1.0527 is to unity, and that consequently 10,527 grains of blood are in volume the same as 10,000 grains of water.
428. From this it results that if in the human adult two ounces of blood are propelled into the lungs at each contraction of the heart, that is, 72 times in a minute, there are in the whole body precisely 384 ounces, or 24 pounds avoirdupois, which measure 692.0657 cubic inches, or within one cubic inch of 20 imperial pints, which measure 693.1847 cubic inches.
429. By an elaborate series of calculations from these data Mr. Finlaison has deduced the following general results:—
1. As there are four pulsations to one respiration ([424]), there are 8 ounces of blood, measuring 14.418 cubic inches, presented to 10.5843 grains of air, measuring 34.24105 cubic inches.
2. The whole contents of the lungs is equal to a volume of very nearly 411 cubic inches full of air, weighing 127 grains, of which 29.18132 grains are oxygen.
3. In the space of five-sixth parts of one second of time, two ounces, or 960 grains weight of blood, measuring 3⅗ or 3.60451 cubic inches, are presented for aëration.