SBP] 
LXXIX. Experiment on Respiration which had nearly proved 
fatal.— Beneficial Effects of Oxygen Gas in restoring sus- 
pended Animation. By Samuzt Wirter, Esq. Dublin, 
Dublin, May 17, 1814. 
Sirs, —Tue following case, which occurred very lately in the 
laboratory of the Dublin Society, having excited no small degree 
of interest in this city, I am induced to transmit you a brief 
detail, in hopes it may prove both interesting and useful to many 
of your readers, convinced that every communication tending 
towards the enlargement ef our knowledge in this regard may 
ultimately produce the most beneficial effects. 
When a mixture of carbonate of lime and zinc, or iron filings, 
is exposed to an intense heat, the peculiar gaseous substance 
named carbonic oxide is disengaged, which has been stated to 
bear the same relation to carbonic acid that nitrous gas does to 
nitric acid. But agreeably to the striking observations of Mr. 
Higgins, professor of chemistry to the Dublin Society, in his 
work recently published, wherein his claim to the discovery of 
the atomic system is unequivocally established, it would appear 
that, in the combination of oxygen with different bases, it is the 
atom of oxygen only that is found multiplied, as is beautifully 
exemplified in all the metallic oxides, acids, and gases, An ap- 
parent anomaly has been noticed with respect to nitrous oxide, 
which the experiments of Mr. Higgins on the composition of 
nitrous gas tend to obviate, and sanction a comparison of the 
proportions of carbon and oxygen in carbonic oxide with those 
of azote and oxygen in nitrous oxide, rather than the atomic 
coincidence of carbonic oxide and nitrous gas. Carbonic oxide 
was discovered and described by Mr. Cruickshank in 1801 ; it is 
highly combustible, burning with a fine blue flame, but is utterly’ 
incapable of supporting animal life? 
The diversified experiments of Sir H. Davy on the respiration 
of nitrous oxide and some other gases, so interestingly described 
in his scientific researches in 1800, in a great measure dissipated 
the general apprehensions of fatality resulting from the inhala- 
tion of compound gases, and satisfactorily demonstrated that 
many of the aérial fluids, before considered as destructive to vi- 
tality, might he breathed with perfect safety. 
Desirous of witnessing the progressive effects of carbonic oxide 
when freely respired, with a view to comparative analogy in rey 
ference to nitrous oxide, I was tempted a few days ago to inhale 
a portion of it as copiously as possible. The consequence had 
very nearly proved fatal to me. A considerable quantity of the 
gas having been carefully prepared by Mr. S. Wharmby, the very 
. ingenious 
