Medical cases and speculations : including parts IV. and V. of Considerations on the medicinal powers, and the production of factitious airs / by Thomas Beddoes, M.D. and James Watt.

  • Beddoes, Thomas, 1760-1808.
Date:
1796
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical cases and speculations : including parts IV. and V. of Considerations on the medicinal powers, and the production of factitious airs / by Thomas Beddoes, M.D. and James Watt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    who had died of the plague, inftantly feized with *f convulfions, and died within an hour after. In dogs and cats the fymptoms of plague have actually been known to appear, {hewing themfelves in the form of buboes, &c. Threats of Philadelphia died in 1793, and it is highly probable their deaths are to be in part afcribed to the gas they breathed. Again, if the idea I entertained was well founded, the gafeous oxyd ought, when very concentrated, to (hew its capability to fupport flame. The two follow- ing fa<£ls, though not related with fufficient accuracy or diflinclnefs, are however cafes in point, and as far as they go, illuflrate and confirm the doctrine in a forcible manner. The firft is that a lighted candle being held near dying perfons, a very livid vapour fi was feen to iffue from their mouths. The other, the relator fays, he frequently obferved in the form of a blue fmoke, as it were, in the rooms where the in- fe&edlay. (Van Swieten, § 1407.) Now, when thefe facte are compared with what Prieflley defcribes of a candle burning in the gafeous oxyd with an enlarged flame, by another flame (extending every where to an equal diitance from that of thecandle, and often plainly diftinguifhable from it) adhering to it, and in fome of his experiments burning blue, there appears tobecon- fiderable firnilarity in the cafes. % Moreover, knowing that under an atmofpherical preffure, which fupports the quickfilver in the barb- meter at 29.84 inches, and in a temperature of 54.5 of Farenheit's fcale, a cubic foot of azotic gas weighed one ounce thirty grains and one half; and of oxygenous gas, one ounce one dram and fifty-one grains : it was prefumable that a combination of the two, that is, thirty-feven parts of oxygene united with fixty-three of azote, would form a fluid of nearly the fame weight with atmofpherical air, or rather heavier, and the pro- bability of this would increafe, by confidering that a cubic foot of nitrous gas, which contains only thirty- one parts more of oxygene than the gafeous oxyd does; weighs one ounce two drams and thirty-nine'grains. An inference from this is, that perfons who refide in Iqw fituations, where the gafeous oxyd is generated, Of