Derenne J P, Debru A, Grassino A E, Whitelaw W A
Service de Pneumologie, Groupe Hospitalier Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France.
Eur Respir J. 1994 Dec;7(12):2234-40. doi: 10.1183/09031936.94.07122234.
The diaphragm was recognized as a distinct anatomical structure in the earliest Greek writings. However, the precise description of wounds suffered by warriors during the Trojan war by Homer was not tied to any particular function. The diaphragm was assimilated to the region that harbours thought. The first physiologic explanations of respiration by Empedocles in the 5th century BC and the concepts introduced by Plato and Hippocrates did not include a significant participation of the diaphragm. Aristole was the first to link respiration to a particular organ and a specific movement of the thorax. However, he considered that it was the heart which caused the lungs to expand by heating them, and the lungs in turn forced the thorax to dilate, a concept which was to survive until the 17th century. As in Aristole's theory the diaphragm played no role in respiration and was just a fence separating the thorax from the abdomen. A major break through occurred in Alexandria in the 4th and 3rd century BC: Herophilus was the first to recognize that muscles were the agents of movement and Erasistratus performed animal experiments which showed that the respiratory muscles were the agents of respiratory movements, thus opening the way to the later discoveries of Galen.
在最早的希腊文献中，横膈膜就被视作一种独特的解剖结构。然而，荷马对特洛伊战争中战士所受创伤的精确描述并未涉及任何特定功能。横膈膜被等同于孕育思想的区域。公元前5世纪恩培多克勒对呼吸的首次生理学解释以及柏拉图和希波克拉底提出的概念都未提及横膈膜的重要作用。亚里士多德是第一个将呼吸与特定器官及胸部的特定运动联系起来的人。然而，他认为是心脏通过加热使肺部扩张，而肺部又迫使胸部扩张，这一概念一直延续到17世纪。在亚里士多德的理论中，横膈膜在呼吸中不起作用，只是将胸部与腹部隔开的一道屏障。公元前4世纪和3世纪在亚历山大城出现了重大突破：希罗菲卢斯是第一个认识到肌肉是运动媒介的人，而埃拉西斯特拉图斯进行的动物实验表明呼吸肌是呼吸运动的媒介，从而为后来盖伦的发现开辟了道路。
