McWeeney — Cases of Carbon Monoxide Asphyxiation. 229 



11*25 



per hour would be or 5 cubic feet, which is balanced by 



what is delivered per hour. The maximum is never actually 

 reached; but at the end of 18 hours the quantity of coal-gas 

 present is 11*246, containing 1,799 of CO, which is for all 

 practical purposes the same. The curves show the percentage of 

 CO and C0 2 present at the stated intervals, on the assumptions 

 already stated. 



Inasmuch, however, as the tap was not fully open, and there- 

 fore delivered less than 5 feet of gas per hour, they represent an 

 over-estimate of the amount of carbon mon- and di-oxide con- 

 tained in the room. Their value lies in a fact which they bring 

 out, viz., that asphyxiation may be induced in a room where the 

 proportion of carbon monoxide, in the atmosphere as a whole, falls 

 short of 2 per cent. The fatal result was, no doubt, due to the 

 carbon monoxide having been unequally distributed through the 

 room, so that the two persons may, at times, have been breathing 

 an atmosphere much more highly charged with the poisonous gas. 



Group IY. (Case 10.) 



The last case is of interest as illustrating the danger of badly- 

 constructed arrangements for the rapid heating of bath-water 



what are known as " Geysers." On the night of March 30, 1904 

 at about 9 o'clock, J. J. K., aged 29, pharmaceutical chemist, went 

 to take a bath at his residence. About three-quarters of an hour 

 afterwards, the female servant, who had been out on an errand, 

 returned, and, on passing the bath-room on her way upstairs, 

 noticed nothing particular. 



Shortly afterwards, on her way down, she remarked a powerful 

 odour of gas in the lobby. She saw the light in the batli-room 

 shining through the muffed-glass door, knocked, could hear no 

 sound, and becoming alarmed, sent for the caretaker, who burst 

 open the door, when the body of the unfortunate young man was 

 found lying just inside, in the narrow space intervening between 

 the bath and the door. He was completely undressed, and the 

 hair was wet. He had evidently been in the bath. So over- 

 powering was the odour of gas that the caretaker was partially 



