OXYGEN AS A THERAPEUTIC AGENT. 
93 
ing the treatment generally available in private practice. 
In this country we have several men of some reputation 
who have given the subject considerable attention. Dr. A. H. 
Smith, of New York, who wrote a prize essay on oxygen, pub¬ 
lished in the New York Medical Journal of April, 1870, after 
large experience and many cases of various kinds treated, says : 
u It is contrary to the economy of nature that the blood should 
have the capacity for absorbing more oxygen than nature can 
supply, under circumstances involving the greatest physiolog¬ 
ical demand for oxygen.” Dr. Smith gives a record of a large 
number of cases treated, with the results in each case. Follow¬ 
ing Dr. A. H. Smith was Samuel S. William, A. M., M. D., of 
Bloomingdale, New York, in four articles published in the New 
York Medical Record: first, October 27, 1883; second, Novem¬ 
ber 10, 1883, September 13 and September 20, 1884. Dr. Wil¬ 
liam had an experience extending over 20 years ; after 16 years’ 
experience he says : 
“ The physiological relations of oxygen are definite and lim¬ 
ited, while its nature and potency as a therapeutic agent, as yet 
not fully understood, is entirely unlimited ” ; he says, “ nor do 
we yet practically realize the fact, that there is no antiseptic 
known of equal potency with pure oxygen, or that there is no 
antiseptic compound which does not contain this vital ele¬ 
ment.” Should this presumption prove to be well founded, it 
devolves on this microchemic age to devise methods for the 
convenient and successful use of the real and safe factor, to the 
exclusion of the noxious, carbonized elements at present so 
largely composing antiseptic mixtures and thus forever do away 
with carbolics, salicylic and all other antiseptic septsemia. Pas¬ 
teur has demonstrated that any form of germ, cultivated in an 
atmosphere of oxygen, will lose all its virulence. 
Among the general profession, from some unknown cause, a 
sort of chronic impression prevails, based on neither science,, 
reason nor experience, that the therapeutic use of oxygen has 
been tried and failed. This, however, is not the case. You 
can trace the entire line, from the discovery of oxygen in 1774 
