Breathing: An Inspired History

Williams (Hippopotamus), professor of cardiopulmonary science at the University of South Wales, takes a look at the biology of breathing in this eclectic if baggy survey. To show how humans arrived at “our current understanding” of breathing, he explores historical beliefs about it, going back to ancient Greece, where it was thought that breathing “supplied a substance called pneuma, the spiritual essence of life.” Ancient Roman physician Galen, meanwhile, learned that breathing was connected to the nervous system. In the 17th century, English scientist Robert Hooke discovered why the lungs inflate and deflate, and more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic is seen as giving breathing “new cultural relevance.” Along the way, Williams discusses how breathing has been described in literature (“breathing out vengeance” in Shakespeare), how it has been used to codify racist ideas (an 1864 study attempted to prove a relationship between lung capacity and race), and how humans today still connect with the spiritual aspects of breathing, as in yoga. His episodic explorations—decreased air pollution because of the pandemic, a description of crying—don’t always come together, though, and the prose can tend toward the simplistic (“There were many survivors of both the war and the flu”). While ambitious, the result is often more frustrating than enlightening. (May)