Boyle showed the effects of the elasticity, compressibility, and weight of air. He investigated the function of air in respiration, combustion, and conveyance of sound. Most significantly Boyle demonstrated that air is essential for life.

In this prelude to Boyle’s Sceptical chymist Boyle describes his corpuscular view of digestion, “giving recognition to the existence of the agents now designated the ‘enzymes’ ” (Fulton, Bibliography of Robert Boyle [1961] 25). The above work also contains Boyle’s first published accounts of chemical experiments.

Boyle’s law. The above pamphlet was appended to the second edition of Boyle’s The spring and weight of the air, 1662. The relevant passage is reproduced inj. F. Fulton’s Selected readings in the history of physiology, 2nd ed., 1966, pp. 8-10. Fulton published an annotated bibliography of Boyle’s works in 1956 (2nd ed., 1961).

The first analysis of blood, Boyle’s Memoirs may be considered the first scientific study in physiological chemistry, exhibiting methods which have become universally adopted. This is Boyle’s most important medical work.

In this work on drug action or pharmacodynamics Boyle argued that remedies composed of only one or two ingredients were preferable to more complex drugs for two reasons. First, because the patient would experience fewer side effects, and second because the physician could more readily verify the effects of a specific drug upon his patient.

Digital text from Early English Books Online at this link.