McWeeney — Cases of Carbon Monoxide Asphyxiation. 231 



capacity, into which water was led through a pipe connected with 

 the supply to the bath. From this receptacle a brass pipe opened 

 over the bath. Underneath, in a space partly surrounded by a 

 japanned metal jacket, but open in front, stood what might be 

 described as a " battery " of six powerful Bunsen burners, which 

 were supplied by a half-inch-bore gas-pipe, from which an ordinary 

 wall-bracket was also taken off. The heated air and products of 

 combustion were carried up round the sides of the boiler within 

 an outer metal casing, which was contracted over the top of the 

 boiler into a sort of funnel discharging them into the room. There 

 ivas no ventilation pipe. 



The ceiling was guarded by a metal disc from being blackened 

 by the products of combustion discharged from the funnel. There 

 was no safeguard whatever for the life of the luckless person who 

 might shut himself up in this nearly air-tight space of 350 cubic 

 feet, with six Bunsens capable of burning about 60 feet of gas, 

 and, therefore, of consuming some 300 feet of air in a single hour ! 

 The poisonous condition of the air may be accounted for in various 

 ways : — 



1. One or more of the burners may have remained unlighted. 

 All were on the same tap. 



2. They may have " struck back." 



3. The flames, by impinging on a cold metallic surface, may 



have had their temperature so much lowered that com- 

 bustion became imperfect, and CO was consequently 

 liberated. 



4. The air in the bath-room may have become charged to such 



an extent with the products of combustion that the 

 gas was only partly consumed, with consequent libera- 

 tion of carbon monoxide. 



Whatever may have been the immediate cause, the fact remains 

 that had the Greyser been ventilated into the outer air, this young 

 man's Life would have been saved. Several similar mishaps have 

 been recorded from the use of badly-ventilated apparatus for the 

 li eating of water. Two are referred to in the Appendix to the 

 Eeport of the Water-gas Committee; and I have since come 



