RESPIRATION OP GASEOUS OXIDE OF AZOTE. |J 



III. 



lads and Objhrvations on the medical liefpirntion of gazcous 

 Oxide of Azote, in a Letter from Z)r. Beddoes. 



To Mr. NICHOLSOX. 

 SIR, 



aJ'R. Pfaff's paper on refplratlon* will probably draw the I^r. Pfaff's ex- 

 atlention of the (cientific towards the gafeoiis oxide ot azote, feibiratlon."'* 

 which has been too much negleded in a medical point of 

 view* I was only foriy to fee that he propofes to ule it in Pr<ipofes gafcons 

 melancholia. No combination of ideas can Ije m^r^ o^'vious ^^1^''^°^^^^ °''' "* 

 than the application of an agent which has lb frequently proved madnds.. 

 exhilarating, and never yet been obferved to be followed by 

 exhauHion where it did exhilarate, to a complaint, in Wiicli 

 dcpredion of fpints is a ftriking circumfiance. But I am ap- 

 prehenfive that the firft thoughts of inexperience here (as fo 

 often happens) will prove illufory, and that this project will 

 not be followed by the expcdied advantage in many cafes of 

 melancholia. For if it be true that there is' no real diflindion 

 between mania and melancholia, as far as the fenlorium is 

 concerned, and (hat the vivacity of ideas in melancholia an- 

 fwers to the violence of mufcular actions in mania, as I have 

 endeavoured to fliew in my Ejfays on Health ; is there not 

 ground to apprehend that the actions of the brain, already 

 too ftrong, will be increafed by this gas, or the difeafed con- 

 templations rendered more intenfc ? 



If there be any flale of melancholia in which it may be of Cautions again* 

 fervice, this will probably happen when the nervous Ivftem is"^ unguarded 

 talling nito debility, in conlequence or having been kept too ory j 

 much on the ftretch. 



But I do not here warn againft gafeous oxide from mere from expeii- 

 theory. The manager of a lunatic alylum near Briftol, re-^""* 

 fpeflabiy known to the public, concurred with me Tome years 

 ago in the opinion which I exprelfed to him concerning its 

 probable advantage in melancholia ; and a patient that had 

 been under his care inhaled it fairly without benefit. The ad- Cafes, 

 ©inifiration was tried in two other cafes as fruitlefsly : Indeed 



♦ PhlJof. Journal, XII. 2^d. 



I dif. 



