- diately in air containing only a twentieth of it, and that so little even
as a hundredth part proved fatal in two minutes.[1]
A set of interesting but hazardous experiments were made with it in 1814 by the assistants of Mr. Higgins of Dublin. One gentleman, after inhaling it two or three times, was seized with giddiness, tremors, and an approach to insensibility, succeeded by languor, weakness, and headache of some hours' duration. The other had almost paid dearly for his curiosity. Having previously exhausted his lungs, he inhaled the pure gas three or four times, upon which he was suddenly deprived of sense and motion, fell down supine, and continued for half an hour insensible, apparently lifeless, and with the pulse nearly extinct. Various means were tried for rousing him, without success; till at last oxygen gas was blown into the lungs. Animation then returned rapidly: but he was affected for the rest of the day with convulsive agitation of the body, stupor, violent headache, and quick irregular pulse; and after his senses were quite restored, he suffered from giddiness, blindness, nausea, alternate heats and chills, and then feverish, broken, but irresistible sleep.[2] A French aëronaut, who used for his balloon a mixture of carbonic oxide and hydrogen, obtained by decomposing water with red-hot charcoal, lately suffered from similar symptoms in a milder degree, in consequence of the gas being disengaged upon him from the safety-valve of his balloon.[3]
Of Poisoning with Nitrous Oxide Gas.—The nitrous oxide or intoxicating gas is the last of the narcotic gases to be noticed. Nysten found, that, when slowly injected in large quantity into the veins of animals, it only caused slight staggering.[4] Frequent observation, however, has shown that it is by no means so inert when breathed by man. Sir H. Davy, who first had the courage to inhale it, observed that it excited giddiness, a delightful sense of thrilling in the chest and limbs, acuteness of hearing, brilliancy of all surrounding objects, and an unconquerable propensity to brisk muscular exertion. These feelings were of short duration, but were generally succeeded by alertness of body and mind, never by the exhaustion, depression, and nausea, which follow the stage of excitement brought on by spirits or opium.[5] Although many have since experienced the same enticing effects, yet they are by no means uniform. For others have been suddenly seized with great weakness, tendency to faint, loss of voice, and sometimes convulsions; and two of Thenard's assistants, on making the experiment, fainted away, and remained some seconds motionless and insensible.[6] It is a remarkable circumstance in the operation of this gas, that, unlike other stimulants, it does not lose its virtues under the influence of habit. Neither does the habitual use of it lead to any ill consequence. Sir H. Davy, in the course of
