EFFECTS OF INTOXICATING &AS. 345 



extremities continued longer than the other sensa- 

 tions. This experiment was made in the morn- 

 ing ; no languor or exhaustion was consequent, 

 my feelings through the day were as usual, and I 

 passed the night in undisturbed repose." 



In giving an account of another experiment 

 with this gas, Sir Humphrey thus describes his 

 feelings : " Immediately after my return from a 

 long journey, being fatigued, I respired nine 

 quarts of nitrous oxide, having been precisely 

 thirty -three days without breathing any. The 

 feelings were different from those I had experi- 

 enced on former experiments. After the first six 

 or seven respirations, I gradually began to lose 

 the perception of external things, and a vivid and 

 intense recollection of some former experiments 

 passed through my mind, so that I called out, 

 ' What an annoying concatenation of ideas !' " 



Another experiment made by the same distin- 

 guished chemist was attended by still more re- 

 markable results. He was shut up in an air- 

 tight breathing-box, having a capacity of about 

 nine and a half cubic feet, and he allowed him- 

 self to be habituated to the excitement of the 

 gas, which was gradually introduced. After 

 having undergone this operation for an hour and 

 a quarter, during which eighty quarts of gas were 

 thrown in, he came out of the box and began to 

 respire twenty quarts of unmingled nitrous oxide. 

 "A thrilling," says he, "extending from the 

 chest to the extremities, was almost immediately 

 produced. I felt a sense of tangible extension 

 highly pleasurable in every kind; my visible 

 impressions were dazzling and apparently magni- 

 fied ; I heard distinctly every sound in the room, 



