Death in Closed Vessels 



535 



40 minutes in the equivalent of 1.24 liters of air; that is, 1 hour 20 

 minutes per liter. At 4:30, rectal temperature is 19°. 

 Lethal air: CX 9.2; CO 9.2. 



CO 



CO + O = 18.4; = 0.79. 



O 



Table II 



Table II, which summarizes these results, shows clearly that 

 at low temperatures the exhaustion of air really is less complete. 

 One needs only to compare the figures with the corresponding ones 

 for the same pressures in Table I. The averages themselves are 

 enlightening enough; the oxygen tension rose from 3.5 to 4.3. 

 Moreover, the average duration of life dropped from 1 hour 16 

 minutes to 57 minutes. 



In this double comparison we see that the parallel I made still 

 continues exactly. We can find many other agreements when we 

 examine the general phenomena displayed by the animals: changes 

 in respiration, circulation and temperature; presence or absence 

 of convulsions, etc. I prefer to devote a special chapter to this 

 subject. 



For the moment we must take another step and pass from the 

 realm of inductions to that of decisive experiments. The problem 

 appears in the following terms. 



We have seen that, in a confined atmospheric medium, at any 

 pressure (below one atmosphere), the sparrows die when the 

 tension of the oxygen in the surrounding air is lowered to an aver- 

 age of 3.6. When the pressure is sufficiently high, the tension figure 

 goes thus low only after a certain time, after an exhaustion due to 



