209 
ON THE INTRODUCTION OF AIR INTO THE 
VEINS OF LIVING ANIMALS. 
[Continued from vol. xi, p. 319.] 
II. — I n the Horse. 
A. Horses not weakened before the experiment. 
In four animals death supervened within the space of fourteen 
minutes in three of them ; but the life of one of them was pro- 
longed to an hour and forty-four minutes, because from some for- 
tuitous circumstance the introduction of the air was interrupted 
during the space of an hour and twenty minutes. 
B. Horses weakened before the experiment. 
In four of these horses death ensued between nine and sixteen 
minutes after the commencement of the experiment. 
After these experiments, the commission is authorized to con- 
clude, that in the horse the introduction of air into the jugular vein 
by means of an incision produces death in a space of time much 
less variable than in the dog. This difference is very evident, and 
should engage the attention of the Academy*. 
In horses and in dogs, other circumstances being the same, death 
occurs more promptly in subjects weakened before the experiment 
than in those that were not so. 
^ II. — The time of death after the insufflation of air from the 
chest of a human being . 
The astonishing rapidity with which death ensues when a man 
blows into the veins of an animal air from his own chest, is strangel}' 
contrasted with the slowness with which, in the majority of cases, 
the effect is produced when atmospheric air is introduced by the 
means just alluded to. Three dogs were killed by one insuffla- 
tion in the space of from a half-minute to two minutes. Two 
horses and a mule were killed by two insufflations in the space of 
five or six minutes. The animals fell as if they were struck by 
lightning. 
Is it to the force with which the air is driven into the veins, and 
the great quantity of gas that may also be injected into the blood, 
that we are to attribute the rapidity with which death is effected 
in this case 1 Such is not the opinion of the reporter. He thinks 
* The reporter believes that the principal cause of this difference consists 
in the facility and the regularity with which, by means of an ample orifice in so 
large a vessel as the jugular, the air is introduced. In dogs the vein, and, 
consequently, the incision being smaller, the air cannot be so easily or regu- 
larly or continuously introduced. 
VOL. XII. E e 
