On breathing and ventilation / by Alfred Schofield.

  • Alfred Taylor Schofield
Date:
[1890?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On breathing and ventilation / by Alfred Schofield. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    standing in, about seventeen times every minute of our lives, day and night without ceasing, or about nine million times every year, whether it be pure or poisonous. What an amazing importance then attaches to this one question of ventilation! Another fact also shows the vital importance of thoroughly understanding this subject. The poison of carbonic acid gas is like those poisons (arsenic, &c.) selected by murderers for their victims, in that it is insidious and gradual in its action. By constant habit greater and greater quantities of it can be taken, profoundly injuring the whole system, though not absolutely destroying life. Claude Bernard’s well-known experiment with the sparrows abundantly proves this. He put one in a glass globe containing pure air and sealed up the opening. After an hour it got feeble, and at the close of two, still feebler. Bernard then opened the globe for an instant and put another sparrow in. This bird died in a few minutes, being unaccustomed to the poisoned air, while the other bird lived in it for an hour longer. It was then taken out, and soon revived in the open air; but on being re-introduced into the glass globe, died at once, owing to the sudden change. There are many rooms in which we live, and es¬ pecially sleep, which get in such a state that a person introduced straight into them from the open air is nearly stifled, while wTe have got used to them. It must never, however, be imagined that because we can get accustomed to poison, it docs us no injury. The same used to be thought of dram-drinking, where small quantities of spirits are constantly being taken, but the person is never drunk. This is now known to be the most fatal form of spirit drinking.
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