On Respiration is one of Aristotle's short treatises on the living body, written in the fourth century BCE and transmitted with On Youth and Old Age. The work published under this title holds two parts: On Respiration itself and its closing chapters on life and death, headed On Life and Death.
In the first, Aristotle faults earlier natural philosophers, Anaxagoras and Diogenes of Apollonia among them, for holding that all animals breathe, when only those with lungs do, and examines the accounts of Democritus and Empedocles. He argues that breathing serves to cool the heat about the heart, and explains why frogs and tortoises stay long under water, how fish cool themselves through their gills, and how bees, wasps and cicadas are cooled by a membrane beneath the midriff. It ends with death when lung or gills can no longer move.
The second distinguishes violent death, from a cause outside, from natural death, as withering in plants and old age in animals. Aristotle places the source of life in the heart or its counterpart, explains why some insects live when cut apart, accounts for palpitation and the pulse as a kind of boiling, and closes where the natural philosopher's inquiry meets the physician's.
Both survive complete in the medieval manuscripts of Aristotle.
Contents
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Περὶ Ἀναπνοῆς On Respiration
Aristotle faults earlier natural philosophers, Anaxagoras and Diogenes among them, for saying that all animals breathe, with Democritus seeming to assume it, when only those with lungs do. He argues that breathing serves to cool the heat about the heart, explains why frogs and tortoises stay long under water, how fish cool themselves through their gills, and how bees, wasps and cicadas are cooled by a membrane beneath the midriff, and ends with death when lung or gills can no longer move.
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Περὶ Ζωῆς καὶ Θανάτου On Life and Death
Birth and death are common to all animals, but death is either violent, from a cause outside, or natural, as withering in plants and old age in animals. Aristotle places the source of life in the heart or its counterpart, explains why some insects live when cut apart and tortoises with the heart removed, accounts for palpitation and the pulse as a kind of boiling, and closes by marking how far health and sickness belong to the natural philosopher as well as the physician.