842 Experiments 



Experiment CCCCLXXXII. April 20. 100 cc. of dog blood, defibri- 

 nated, are shaken continuously for 18 hours in the apparatus pictured 

 in Figure 45, with oxygen compressed to 18 atmospheres. 



April 21, from a little dog (weighing 5 kilograms) 100 cc. of blood 

 are taken, a loss of blood which certainly would 2 not have killed him, 

 and into his femoral vein is slowly injected the 100 cc. of blood which 

 had been shaken and deprived of free gases. 



The injection is made at 11 o'clock. Immediately after, the animal 

 begins to run; but he soon retires to a corner, falls into a sort of 

 somnolence, and dies at 5:30; his rectal temperature at this time is 

 29.5°. 



So the anatomical elements of the bones and the cellular tissue 

 were killed by the oxygen at high tension; the blood acquired 

 toxic properties; grafts were absorbed without having made vas- 

 cular adherences. If they did not cause cellulitis, that is probably 

 because the oxygen had killed all the atmospheric germs which 

 might have lodged there; besides, I obtained similar results before. 



We conclude from these data that the death of higher animals 

 in compressed oxygen, although its immediate cause is the super- 

 excitation of the central nervous system, as we have demonstrated, 

 is really due to a general effect of the oxygen upon the whole 

 organism. But the nervous elements, which are more susceptible, 

 react first, disturb the vital mechanisms, so that death occurs before 

 the other elements are noticeably affected. 



Hence we draw again the conclusion that the death of the 

 anatomical elements has nothing to do with putrefaction; it is not 

 the first stage of putrefaction, as might have been thought with 

 apparent reason; it is quite a different thing, because pressure, 

 which hastens death, prevents putrefaction. 



Subchapter IV 



ON THE USE OF OXYGEN AT HIGH TENSION AS AN 

 EXPERIMENTAL METHOD 



The data which have just been reported in the two preceding 

 subchapters seem to me to present considerable interest, not only 

 in themselves, but from the point of view of the use of oxygen at 

 high tension as an experimental method. We have seen, in fact, 

 that the microscopic organisms which constitute the true ferments 

 and that anatomical elements, isolated or grouped in tissues, are 

 killed by oxygen; that on the contrary the unformed ferments, the 



