# suffocative
## English
### Etymology

From suffocate +‎ -ive.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈsʌfəkətɪv/

### Adjective

suffocative (comparative more suffocative, superlative most suffocative)
* Tending or able to choke or stifle.
    Synonym: suffocating
** 1712, John Arbuthnot, An Essay Concerning the Effects of Air on Human Bodies:suffocative catarrhs
** 1797, The Medical Repository‎, T. & J. Swords, page 5:Both of these were true; but the snowy heights of the numerous surrounding hills, and the loner chain of mountains which reached quite across and almost buried the adjoining kingdom of Thrace, preserved a more steady and severe cold in winter, than on the sea-coast; and a more uniform and suffocative heat, in summer.
** 1812, C. E. Horeau, Corvisart des Marets, Jacob Gates, Jean Nicolas, Watson & Bangs, An Essay on the Organic Diseases and Lesions of the Heart and Great Vessels‎, Anthony Finley, Bradford and Read, Watson & Bangs, page 202:March 24, 1803, the day of his entrance into the Clinical Hospital, he was in a state of extreme anxiety; respiration was suffocative ; he felt in the region of the heart sharp pains which compelled him to shriek, particularly at night.
** 1820, James Johnson, Henry James Johnson, Medico-Chirurgical Review‎, pages 232-233:"I believe one of the most frequent causes of dilatation of coronary arteries to be, the deposition of a large quantity of fat within the interstices of the muscular tissue of the heart, which appears to produce here (as a similar process clearly does in other parts of the body) a diminution in the capacity of all the minuter capillaries distributed within the organ ; and hence the main trunks, although sufficiently furnished with blood, become incapable either of transmitting their contents with freedom, or of supplying the heart with its proper nutriment ; and accordingly, the large branches of these arteries suffer marked dilatation, while the cardiac muscular tissue becomes pale, softened, and atrophied : and hence arises one of the most frequent causes of rupture of the heart. It has become a subject of remark, that in the cases where death occurs from sudden rupture of one of the heart's cavities, the whole of the surface and furrows of the organ will generally be found loaded with adipose tissue ; and (judging from a considerable number of specimens in the various metropolitan museums) we may also add, with the caronary arteries considerably dilated. It may not be altogether unimportant to bear the above facts in mind, with regard to the application of remedial measures in these cases. It is by no means unusual to find elderly persons of obese habits of body complaining of violent palpitation, with sensations of impending suffocation, after any sudden exertion or emotion, the application of cold to the surface of the body, or, in fact, any action which tends to determine an unusual supply of blood to the heart In these persons, the pulse is usually weak, while percussion and auscultation shew that their hearts, although large, act feebly ; the sounds being indistinct, but free from irregularity or other abnormal character. This train of symptoms is probably often dependent upon an advanced degree of that condition of the heart which I have last described ; and I have little doubt that the difficulty of breathing, which nearly all extremely corpulent persons experience upon unwonted exertion, is mainly attributable to less degrees of the same changes. Acting upon this course of reasoning, I have found that the adoption of a plan of treatment calculated at once to procure absorption of a portion of the superfluous fat of these patients, and to diminish the quantity of their circulating fluids, has been followed by an acquisition of increased cardiac power, as evidenced by a stronger pulse and an entire cessation of the suffocative attacks during very long intervals."
** 1822, James Ewell, The Medical Companion‎, B. Edes, page 5:Azote, by others called phlogisticated, mephitic, corrupted, or suffocative air, is absolutely unrespirable, and not miscible with water. It arises from the change which atmospherical air undergoes in every process of combustion, putrefaction and respiration, whether produced by nature or art.
** 1827, John Mason Good, The Study of Medicine (Volume 3)‎, J. & J. Harper for Collins and Hannay, page 203:The shore is skirted by two enormous cliffs of sand-stone that rise between two and three hundred feet in perpendicular height. The old town is built in a deep ravine opening towards the northeast, that lies between them, and the new town immediately under'the cliffs, fronting south and west ; and hence, while the air is rushing in a perpetual current through the former, it becomes stagnant, heated, and suffocative in the latter.

### References

* “suffocative”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.