Richmond daily register. (Richmond, Madison County, Ky.) 1917-1978, 1922-11-13
WARNING ODOR TO
DETECT GAS LEAK
Yale Scientists Experiment to
Find Mixture That Will Give
Notice of Escaping Fumes.
SEEK ANTIDOTE FOR ASPHyXIA
Artificial Atmosphere e5 Per Cent
Oxygen Called Best Method Yet
Known-Doctors Breathe Gas
to Test Cure.

New York-Scientists of Yale uni
versity, who have been asked by the
! American Gas association to discover
some means of reducing accidental
deaths by asphyxiation, have devel-
oped a new technique for rescuing
persons overcome by gas and are also
experimenting with warning odors to
mix with gas in order to make escap-
ing fumes detected far more quickly
than at present.
The most efficient warning odor so
far developed is a substance called
mercaptan. Dr. Yandell Henderson of
Yale who, with Prof Howard w. Hag-
gard, has been in charge of these in
vestigatiOns, said that mercaptan had
an odOr closely resembling that of the
skunk, and that objections had been
made against its use. in spite of its
admitted high efficiency. One DROP of
the substance, which can be made
Synthetically from coal tar, is said to
be sufficient to diffuse a powerful
warning odOr throughout the Grand
Central terminal. Because of the
enormous volume of gas used in this
city any substance suited for the pur-
pose of giving far and wide the alarm
of leaking gas must be capable of COM
municating a sharp odOr to an enor-
nous volume of air or gas. When he
was reminded that slight OdOr Of
gas often hung about a gas jet or
stove, Doctor Henderson said:
'In good modern apparatus, there
should be no trouble of that kind. If
any substance is to be mixed with the
gas to give it an Odor, it must be some
thing strong enough to be noticed at
once"
Call Most Gas Deaths Suicide.
So far no gas company has carried
the experiment to the extent of fur
nishing mercaptan mixed with gas to
their customers. In spite of the adj
mitted excellence of such a signal as
a life-saver, the scientists held that
the best practical method for cutting
down accidental deaths in cities
through the use of gas was the re-
quirement Of high standard of gas
apparatus. The report of Doctors
Haggard snd Henderson to the Amerl-
can Gas association said:
"The observations made by the au-
thors during the investigation indicate
that a considerable number of the
cases Of fatal asphyxia recorded as
accidental in the Borough Of Manhat- |
tan, New York city, are really suicide |
The published figures for 1920 report
124 suicides by gas out of total of |
$50 suicides; they report also 189 fatal !
accidental gassings out of total Of I
2,215 violent deaths, this total includ- !
ing 461 highway fatalities and 367 !
falls from windows, elevators, etc. In |
the 313 deaths thus assigned to gas, |
suicides certainly contributed in real |
ity much larger proportion and the !;
accidental castings were correspond
ingly fewer than these figures show. +,
The average citizen of New York runs
a much greater risk of losing his life
in a street accident or by fall from
a window or elevator than from as
phyxia and he may reduce the latter
risk practically to zero by the exer-
else Of little care.
5lames Defective Apparatus.
e. |