The Waterbury Democrat., 1933-12-22
CHRONIC CARBON MONOXIDE
 POISONING

As every schoolboy knows, gass- ing with carbon monoxide, whether
 from a portable gas heater in
 bathroom or bedroom or from the exhaust of an automobile engine in a closed garage or from leaky flue, is likely to overcome the victim so suddenly that there is no time to escape or call for help. But the effects of prolonged exposure to
 air which is only slightly con- taminated by the deadly gas are not so well known. Chronic co poisoning is more common than one might think. In modern life, there are so many sources of such poisoning, aside from those men, toned.
 l In cities, deaths from carbon I monoxide exceed those from any other poison. How much Illness is | due to mild chronic monoxide pois- oning we can only conjecture, for doubtless most cases are not cor rectly diagnosed, the symptoms be- | ing ascribed to other causes. In the majority of instances victims of chronic carbon monoxide pois- | oning do not consult physician at all. They prefer to "try" what ] ever nostrum or diet or suggestion seems to them to fit the require ments.
 A few of the many sources of mild gassing:. Policing traffic in canyons surrounded by high build ings. Living in a house where any | fuel is burned with draft closed. or where there is any leak in the | f1ue or chimney through which 0a COG r,1aU ocnana into tho hn11Sa Tailors using gas irons with leaky ! gas connections or faulty burners. Garage employees shut In where engines are running. Women and children living where artificial gas | connections permit leakage of gas. Persons working or living where any kind of stove iron becomes red jhot, or accumulations of soot be- come incandescent; this latter con dition occurs frequently in gas water heaters. Faulty heaters in closed automobiles, and the bad habit of driving with all windows closed, in cold weather.
 A child has relatively greater | respiratory exchange than an adult and hence a child is more quickly overcome, more sensitive to small amount of the odorless poison in the air. A mouse or q canary is so quickly overcome that rescue crews in mines carry some such small animal to warn them when the air is dangerously pol luted (by the after-damp from the use of explosives). Young tomato plants, and probably other plants are very sensitive to small propor- tions of co in the atmosphere. Gardners and florists know how disastrous the exhaust gases from the automobile are to plants. It is we'll to remember that car bon monoxide is colorless, tasteless and practically odorless. It burns with pale blue flame. It poisons by combining with the hemoglobin in the red blood corpuscles in place of the oxygen the corpuscles should carry to the cells of the whole body. This combination Of, CO-hemoglobin is even more stable than the normal oxygen combina- ton (O-hemeglobin) and that fact accounts for the deadliness of monoxide poisoning and the ob- stinacy of after effects. Fortunately carbon dioxide has nearly or quite as great an affinity for the hemo- globin and hence the administra- tion of carbon dioxide gas mixed with air or oxygen is the best treatment for monoxide poisoning.
 In my opinion we should include among sources of mild chronic car bon monoxide poisoning excessive smoking. Chemical tests of blood have proved that following the smoking of few cigarettes. for example) there is a definite in- crease in the proportion of carbon monoxide in the blood.
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS