and immediate death, when injected into the veins, although the gas was at once absorbed by the blood. The same quantity acted with almost equal rapidity when injected into the cavity of the chest. Similar results were obtained when it was injected into the cellular tissue, or even when it was left for some time in contact with the sound skin.[1] The last important fact has been since confirmed by Lebküchner in his Thesis on the permeability of the tissues;[2] and it had previously been observed also by the late Professor Chaussier, whose experiments will be mentioned presently (p. 617). In none of Nysten's experiments with this gas was the blood changed in appearance.
Nitric oxide gas, according to Nysten, is the most energetic of all the poisonous gases. A very small quantity causes death by tetanus, when introduced into a vein, the cavity of the chest, or the cellular tissue; and it always changes the state of the blood, giving it a chocolate-brown colour, and preventing its coagulation. In one of Nysten's experiments a cubic inch and three-quarters injected into the chest killed a little dog in 45 minutes.[3] Dr. John Davy appears to have found this gas not so active.[4]
Nysten found the two other gases, ammonia and chlorine, to be acrid in their action. When injected into the veins they kill by over-stimulating the heart; and when injected into the cavity of the chest, they excite inflammation in the lining membrane.[5] Hébréart farther remarked in his experiments relative to the action of irritants on the windpipe, that chlorine when inspired, produces violent inflammation in the windpipe and its great branches, ending in the secretion of a pseudo-membrane like that of croup;[6] and that a very small quantity of ammonia has the same effect.
From this abstract of Nysten's researches, it appears to follow, that ammonia and chlorine are irritants; hydrosulphuric acid and nitric oxide, narcotics; oxygen, azote, hydrogen, carburetted hydrogen, phosphuretted hydrogen, carbonic oxide, and nitrous oxide, negative poisons; and carbonic acid, doubtful in its nature. Some of these conclusions do not correspond with the effects observed in man; which will presently be found to lead to the inference, that not only carbonic acid, but likewise carbonic oxide, nitrous oxide, and carburetted hydrogen are narcotics. The reason Nysten did not find these gases injurious was probably, that, before they could pass from the vein into which they were injected, to the brain on which they act, they were in a great measure exhaled from the lungs. The experiments of physiologists since Nysten's time likewise tend to show that oxygen gas is a positive poison when pure, and that even hydrogen possesses active properties. The inquiries of Mr. Broughton led him to consider hydrogen a positive poison, because animals die in it in half a minute, and the heart immediately after death is found
- ↑ Rech. Chemico-Physiologiques, p. 114.
- ↑ Diss. Inaug. utrum, per viventium adhuc animalium membranas materiæ ponderabiles permeare queant. Tubingæ, p. 10.
- ↑ Nysten, Recherches, &c. p. 137.
- ↑ Philosophical Transactions, cxiii. 508.
- ↑ Nysten, Recherches, &c. p. 140.
- ↑ Corvisart's Journal de Méd. xxiv. 249.
