Carbonic acid in medicine / by Achilles Rose, M.D. ; with the portraits of van Helmont, Priestley and Lavoisier.

  • Achilles Rose
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Carbonic acid in medicine / by Achilles Rose, M.D. ; with the portraits of van Helmont, Priestley and Lavoisier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    records, dating from the end of the eighteenth and the first quarter of the nineteenth century, according to which inhalations of air contain- ing a high percentage of carbonic acid effected an improvement in, and sometimes the cure of, phthisis. Later on asthma was subjected to this mode of treatment. As recently as 1883 Edmond Weill spoke in the Academic des Sci- ences of Paris on his experience in applying carbonic-acid-gas inhalations to patients suffer- ing from dyspnea. The sittings lasted from two to five minutes, once or twice daily, the inhalations being of pure carbonic-acid gas, the quantity being from 2 to 4 liters at each sit- ting. At no time were there experienced un- pleasant symptoms, while the results were encouraging. Patients thus treated were con- sumptives and emphysematics. Coughing spells were relieved and prevented. It is not difficult to explain the effects thus obtained. The reports given leave no doubt that the relief secured was due to narcotic action, to a slight intoxication. The application of carbonic-acid gas in this form did not remain in practise very [57]