A number of tests were made for the purpose of discovering whether the pressure of oxygen in the blood was or was not higher than that in the alveolar air. In all cases they were so nearly the same that we attribute the passage of gas through the pulmonary epithelium to diffusion.
"Observations Upon the Effect of High Altitude on the Physiological Processes of the Human Body, Carried Out in the Peruvian Andes, Chiefly, at Cerro de Pasc" In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B, Volume 211, 1923