28 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 6^ 



famous for his epoch-making discovery of Oxygen. The patient, 

 from the description given, had a well-marked case of pulmonary 

 tuberculosis in the second or third stage. She was placed in a stable 

 14 by 20 feet and 9 feet high, and her bed was in a small recess a 

 few inches above the ground of the stable, where two or three cows 

 were kept. The temperature was maintained at 60° to 70° F. Mrs. 

 Finch remained in this cow house nearly all the time from the 

 autumn of 1799 until the spring of 1800. In a letter, dated August 

 15, 1800, the patient wrote, " I am happy in being able to say that 

 my chest continues perfectly well ; and from the difference of my 

 feelings now, and some years back, I am more than ever a friend 

 of the cows. I avoid colds and night air ; and by rides in the country 

 am anxious to brace myself against winter and the necessity of a 

 sea voyage." 



OXYGEN FOR TUBERCULOUS PATIENTS 



Shortly after the discovery of oxygen, physicians were stimulated 

 to try the effect of various gases in the treatment of phthisis. Four- 

 croy and Beddoes both observed the effects of the inhalation of 

 oxygen and found that it accelerated the pulse and respiration, and, 

 as they believed, increased inflammatory action so that they con- 

 cluded that its effect was prejudicial. Beddoes held that in phthisis 

 there is an excess of oxygen in the system and consequently, that 

 free air was injurious to the patient. He says in the essay quoted 

 previously ■} " As it seemed to me hopeless to propose residence in 

 a cow house, I advised that the patient should live during the winter 

 in a room fitted up so as to ensure the command of a steady tempera- 

 ture. This advice was followed. Double doors and double windows 

 were added to the bed room. The fire place was bricked up round 

 the flue of a cast iron stove for giving out heated air." What a con- 

 trast to the fresh air cure of the present day! But the doctor per- 

 sisted in his plan of treatment until the patient died. 



The amount of oxygen present in the atmosphere, 20.938 per cent, 

 is precisely adapted to the needs of animal life and the same propor- 

 tion of oxygen is preserved in the atmosphere everywhere, without 

 regard to altitude.^ It has been found that animals die if the ratio 

 of oxygen is artificially decreased by as much as twenty-five per 



' Thomas Beddoes : Observations on the Medical and Domestic Manage- 

 ment of the Consumptive. American edition, Troy, 1803, p. 42. 



' Analyses by Gay-Lussac of Air Collected at 7,000 meters ; and observa- 

 tions by Dumas and Boussingault. 



