252 'A Retrospect in Biochemistry [Dec 



chemistry were far better there than in either France or England. 

 There was really no advanced teaching of chemistry in this country 

 at that time, most of the universities and technical schools doing 

 splendid work for the science to-day had either not been founded or 

 were just emerging from the College to the university stage. Im- 

 mediately after the Franco-Prussian war, France revised her school 

 System and outlined a progressive policy for the development of her 

 higher institutions of learning. She had in Pasteur a master mind, 

 whose wonderful researches created a new field of scientific en- 

 deavor and not only gave impetus to the study of biochemical 

 Problems, but also revolutionized the science of medicine, developed 

 new industries and reconstructed old ones. 



In looking over data referring to the decade of the seventies 

 two important contributions are found to have been made in this 

 country on respiration. Immediately after the isolation of oxygen 

 and the recognition that animal life was maintained by it, it being, 

 so to speak, like " a vestal virgin to the body, to keep alive the flame 

 of life," there was a great misconception regarding the Inhalation 

 of pure oxygen. Arguing by analogy from the rekindling of a 

 splinter of wood from a mere spark at its end when placed in 

 oxygen, it was thought that similarly on inhaling oxygen one would 

 "live too fast." In a prize essay on "Oxygen as a Remedy in 

 Disease"^ the results of experiments were described which showed 

 that not only was this idea fallacious but that some of the experi- 

 menters abroad had fallen into an equally grave error, in supposing 

 that oxygen was toxic because when an animal was put in an atmos- 

 phere of pure oxygen it died after a time. When the residual air 

 was tested it was found that a splinter would rekindle from a spark. 

 The presence of the carbon dioxide in this residual gas had been 

 ignored. It was proved to be the poison, for when removed as 

 formed, by placing caustic alkali in the oxygen along with the 

 animal, the animal continued to live. Now, helmets are constructed 

 which permit the removal of the carbon dioxide exhaled by the 

 wearer, while the deficiency in volume is made up from a cylinder 

 of compressed oxygen attached to the apparatus. Indeed if sodium 



^ " Oxygen Gas as a Remedy in Disease," by Andrew H. Smith, M.D., N. Y. 

 Medical Journal, 1870. Prize Essay of the Ahimni Association of the College 

 of Physicians and Surgeons, N. Y. 



