had been forty years in the manufactory; and I have seen in Mr. Tenant's manufactory at Glasgow a healthy-looking man who had been also about forty years a workman there. It is an interesting fact, that during the epidemic fever which raged over Ireland from 1816 to 1819, the people at the manufactory at Belfast were exempt from it.
Of Poisoning with Ammonia.—For an account of the effects of ammonia, which, when in the state of gas, acts violently as an irritant on the mouth, windpipe, and lungs, the reader is referred to the chapter on ammonia and its salts in page 193. It appears to form one of the gases disengaged from the soil of necessaries, as will be noticed presently, and excites inflammation in the eyes of workmen who are incautiously exposed to it.[1]
Of Poisoning with Hydrochloric Acid Gas.—I have not met with any account of the effects of hydrochloric acid gas on man. But no doubt can be entertained that it will likewise act as a violent and pure irritant.
It is exceedingly hurtful to vegetable life. In the course of some experiments performed in 1827 by Dr. Turner and myself on the effects of various gases on plants, we found that a tenth of a cubic inch diluted with 20,000 times its volume of air, so as to be quite imperceptible to the nostrils, shrivelled and killed all the leaves of various plants, which were exposed to it for twenty-four hours.[2] These experiments were repeated in 1832 by Messrs. Rogerson, apparently in ignorance of them. Their results are on the whole the same; and the slighter effect obtained by them from minute proportions of the gas was evidently owing to the small size of their glass-jars not allowing them to use a sufficient quantity of it.[3] They farther found that proportions of hydrochloric acid gas, amounting to a twentieth of the air, kill small animals in half an hour with symptoms of obstructed respiration. Their experiments with less proportions are not precise, yet warrant the inference that even a thousandth part of the gas will probably prove fatal in no long time.[4]
Of Poisoning with Hydrosulphuric Acid Gas.—The narcotic gases are of much greater importance than the irritants, on account of the singularity of their effects, and the greater frequency of accidents with them. This group includes hydrosulphuric acid, carburetted-hydrogen, carbonic acid, carbonic oxide, nitrous oxide, cyanogen, and oxygen.
Hydrosulphuric acid gas is probably the most deleterious of all the gases. According to Thenard and Dupuytren, air containing only an 800th of it will kill small birds in a few seconds; and a 290th is sufficient to kill a dog; which, however, will sustain so much as a 400th.[5] Chaussier previously found, that a horse was killed by breathing atmospheric air which contained a 250th of hydrosulphuric
