232 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



across a third, reported in the Deutsche Medicinische Wochenschrift 

 for February 4th, 1904, by Dr. Scheven, throat-surgeon of Frank- 

 furt-am- Main. The patient was taken unconscious from his bath, 

 and, after some hours of active treatment (which comprised hypo- 

 dermics of camphor, intra-venous injection of 1,500 com. of warm 

 saline solution, artificial respiration, and inhalations of oxygen), he 

 recovered. The bath was heated by a Geyser, which, on examina- 

 tion by an expert, was pronounced to be in good working order, 

 but which was not ventilated. The bath-room was relatively 

 large, 10 feet high, and with a capacity of 660 cubic feet. 

 Dr. Scheven's theory is, that so large a consumption of gas as 

 is needed for the rapid heating of the bath-water must necessarily 

 diminish the oxygen content of a small enclosed space to such an 

 extent as to lead to imperfect combustion and formation of 

 carbon monoxide. In order to test this, he fixed a number of 

 candles at varying heights in the bath-room, and set the Geyser 

 going. In ten minutes all the candles were extinguished. His second 

 experiment consisted in hanging up a cage, containing a large 

 white rat, 19 inches from the roof. A second cage, containing 

 two smaller rats, was put on the floor. The Geyser was then set 

 going ; and on entering the room in twenty minutes — the time 

 necessary to prepare a full bath — the rat in the upper cage was 

 already dead, whilst the two animals in the cage on the floor were 

 lying on their side quite unconscious, but still breathing. They 

 recovered in three-quarters of an hour. The large rat in the 

 upper cage was examined, and found to present the typical signs of 

 carbon monoxide poisoning. I am unable to say whether the gas 

 supply of Frankfurt contains an admixture of carburetted water- 

 gas ; but, in any case, the fact remains that unventilated Geysers 

 are distinctly dangerous, and should not be allowed. 1 



1 On this day (19th May, 1904), in the act of preparing the MS. of this paper for the 

 press, I see in the English daily papers the account of a similar accident from the use 

 of a Geyser at Birmingham. A nurse-maid was engaged in bathing two children, 

 when all three became unconscious, and the younger child slipped into the bath 

 and was drowned. The medical evidence showed the presence of carbon monoxide 

 in the blood, and attributed the sudden unconsciousness of the other two persons to 

 the same cause. The Geyser was unventilated. 



