Two cases of poisoning by the respiration of carbonic acid gas, with a fatal issue in one, and recovery in the other / by John Davidson.

  • Davidson, John, M.D.
Date:
[between 1800 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Two cases of poisoning by the respiration of carbonic acid gas, with a fatal issue in one, and recovery in the other / by John Davidson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    to bed, or even before, as seems probable from what will be imme- diately stated. As indicating the deterioration of the air in the small room, from these two men sleeping in it, and the effect of that deterioration on them without its being increased by a lighted stove, I may mention, that A. M— told me that the deceased and he always felt the air of the room close and unpleasant in the morning, that they allowed the window to remain open all day to ventilate it, and only shut it at night when they went to bed, and also that they had often awoke in the morning with a bad taste in their mouths to such an extent, as compelled them to have recourse to rinsing for its removal. It appears exceedingly probable that the atmosphere of the room must have been highly charged with carbonic acid gas shortly after they entered it; and that it began to act on them soon after they fell asleep, or even before they went to bed seems likely, first, from the ch-cumstance of A. M—, having vomited a quantity of porridge soon after he had been taken out of the room, and which appeared not to have undergone any change during the fourteen hours it had been in his stomach, the particles being quite entire, and as fresh as if they had been recently swallowed; and, secondly, from a con- siderable quantity of porridge having been found in the stomach of W. H—, which had undergone little or no change, though, according to the expei'iraents and observations of Dr Beaumont of the United States, poiTidge is digested, and removed from the stomach in the course of from one to two hours. Thus the gas seems to have had the effect of paralyzing the activity of the stomach, and of retarding or destroying the function of digestion. As an additional proof of the speedy effect of the gas on them, I may add, that they both fell asleep much sooner than usual, and also, that M— was found lying nearly in the same position in which he lay down, not even having had time to turn, as he says he Avas in the habit of doing. I may also state, that the air of the room was so powerfully im- pregnated with the nauseous odour of the gas, as to be quite discernible by the nasal organs as well as discoverable by chemical re-agents, ten days afterwards, notwithstanding that the door and window had been kept constantly open, and likewise, that the bed- clothes and bedding were so saturated as to evolve the same peculiar odour, so strongly as to occasion to the persons who washed them severe sickness and falntness. It seems very probable, that in many, if not almost every case of fatal poisoning by carbonic acid gas, the transition from life to death must have been attended with little or no struo-frlinc or suf- lernig; and m cases such as the one now related, where there has been no symptom of slckncs.s, no urinary or feculent discharges, no contortion of the muscles of the face, or unusual position of the extremities, and more especially, when the bed-clothes have not been in the least degree ruffled or discomposed, we are justified in