94 
J. CAMPBELL. 
down to the present, and you can find no well authenticated 
case where it has been properly used and failed. However, the 
shortcomings of impure and carelessly manufactured gas, have 
done more than all else to bring the use of oxygen into disre¬ 
gard and discredit and prevent its timely use by the profession 
in many cases. Still, the use of oxygen as a gas can never 
come into general use by the profession, on account of the im¬ 
practicability of moving the generating apparatus around from 
one patient to another, or of carrying in a suitable receptacle 
the gas already generated. While vast improvements have been 
made in the modus operandi of obtaining pure oxygen, yet the 
impracticable part has not and cannot be removed so long as 
we deal with oxygen in the gaseous form ; the fact, however, 
that oxygen as a gas has been found to be impracticable, does 
not in any way lessen its therapeutic value, when a means has 
been discovered by which it can come into practical use. In 
considering this subject there are a few facts which it will be 
well for us to bear in mind:—first, a healthy adult, at active 
exercise in the open air, inspires daily one thousand gallons of 
oxygen diluted with four thousand gallons of nitrogen. Oxy¬ 
gen from the air is readily absorbed by the blood in the pulmo¬ 
nary circulation, and in the general circulation the oxygen is 
given up to the tissues and carbon dioxide takes its place in the 
venous blood. 
According to Professor Dalton, carbon dioxide is given off 
in the pulmonary circulation and oxygen absorbed, while in the 
general circulation the reverse takes place; oxygen is given up 
to the tissues and disappears and is replaced by carbon dioxide 
in the venous blood. 
Burdon-Sanderson has further shown that the red blood 
cells are the main carriers of oxygen and that the condition in 
inflammation, in its earlier stages, essentially consists of a slug¬ 
gish and finally immobile condition of the white blood cells, 
from want of a due and regular supply of oxygen ; and, further, 
that the activity of the white blood cells is in exact proportion 
to the amount of oxygen present. This effectually refutes the 
t 
