The Savannah morning news., 1904-04-23
HOW GAS ASPHYXIATEs.
Danger of Leaking Pipe-Safety in
Well Ventilated Sleeping Rooms.
From the New York Sun.

From the New York Sun.
The marked increase in deaths from
gas poisoning during the present win
ter over the normal average is attrib-
uted to the extreme cold. The moisture
in service pipes freezes, partly or com
pletely closing them. This makes es-
pecially dangerous the custom of sleep
ing in ill-ventilated rooms in which
the gas is left burning with flame SO
small that partial interruption of
the flow will extinguish it. If after
such eXtinguishment the flow is resum-
ed and the gas escapes into the air.
those who breathe it are likely to suf-
fer serious consequences.
Fatalities from breathing gas are
usually attributed to asphyxiation
This is correct if the word is used in
its original meaning of a cessation of
heart action, but it is not at all cor
rect If used to indicate death from
suffocation as in drowning or from i'm
mersion in carbonic acid. Gas as
phyxiation is due to the action of an
extremely energetic blood poison, car
bon monoxide, which constitutes from
30 to 40 per cent. of the water gas now
distributed in New York and most
American seaboard cities. This is a
matter which should be we'll under
stood by everybody using water gas
for light or heat, and a plain state
ment of facts as to the phenomena of
gas poisoning should be of general
public interest.
Carbon monoxide represented by the
symbol co, is "a gas to be afraid of.
Experiments on animals show that
air containing as little as four tenths
of l per cent. after sufficient exposure,
will always cause death in man, and
that anything over two-tenths will in
many cases prove fatal. 1t is without
smell or irritating properties, which
makes it the more dangerous The first
symptoms of carbon monoXide poison
ing are dizziness, shortness of breath
and heart palpitation. Sometimes there
is drowsiness similar to that produced
by alcohol. When more of the gas
has been absorbed there is a failure
of muscular power, and the mind be-
comes confused. The loss of muscular
and sensory power gradually becomes
more and more complete until death
ensues. There is no pain or serious
discomfort, and commonly no con-
seriousness of danger. What happens is
well understood. The haemoglobin, or
red coloring matter, of the blood alb
fsorbs oxygen from the air and car
ries it with the circulation to the It's
sues, where it is used up. This opera
ton is essential to life. But carbon
monoxide has for haemoglobinsra about
400 times the affinity of oxygen.
Hence it is absorbed by it much more
readily, and forms with it a more sta
BILE compound than does oxygen. In
proportion to the amount of carbon
monoxide taken up by it, oxygen is
| excluded, and when about 70 to 80 per
cent. of saturation is reached death is
inevitable.
In the average man the weight of
blood is to the weight of the body as
| one to twenty-one. This is represent
! ed by about three litres of blood, of
which the haemoglobin requires to
saturate it about 600 &C of carbon
monoxide. When at rest a man
breathes about litres of air per min
ute. In about twenty minutes Of ex-
posture to an atmosphere containing
two-tenths of a per cent. of co, he
should begin to feel the effects in the
symptoms above mentioned. If the ex-
posture is continued or the breathing
stimulated the consequences are likely
to be very serious, and if the percen-
tage of co in the air breathed is in
creased death is scarcely to be avoid
ed
A gas leak. however slight, is never
safely negligible. That leaks known
to exist and sufficient to cause an
noyance from the presence of a dis
agreeable odor in the air are so often
neglected can be attributed only to
ignorance. The smell of gas is a dan
ger signal as significant as the rattle
of a snake in the grass. 1t is most
to be feared, however, in the odorless
form in which it enters houses from
leaks in buried mains or service pipes
Uncarburetted water gas, carrying
about as per cent. of CO. is odorless;
Illuminating gas which has been filter
ed through the ground loses its odor-
imparting additions-the naphtha vap-
ors which render it luminous-and be-
comes a gas of nearly equal parts OF
| hydrogen and carbon monoXide. 1t is
by far the most dangerous constituent
of what is called sewer gas, it accounts
for the general prevalence of anaemic
conditions among the poorly housed OF
our city's population, and constitutes
a fire hazard which is the more dis
quoting from the being indetermina te
The citizen needs to be at all times
on his guard against the danger to
which he is exposed from gas. This
danger the most timid cannot exag-
gerate nor the bravest safely disre-
gard.