78 POISONS : THEIR EFFECTS AND DETECTION. [§ 47 * 
Poisoning by a small dose of carbon monoxide may produce but few 
striking changes, and then it is only by a careful examination of the 
blood that evidence of the real nature of the case will be obtained. 
§ 47. Mass Poisonings by Carbon Monoxide. —An interesting series 
of cases of poisoning by water gas occurred at Leeds in 1889, and has 
been recorded by Dr Thos. Stevenson. 1 
Water gas is made by placing coke in a vertical cylinder and heating 
the coke to a red heat. Through the red-hot coke, air is forced up 
from below for ten minutes ; then the air is shut off and steam passes 
from above downwards for four minutes; the gas passes through 
a scrubber, and then through a ferric oxide purifier to remove SH 2 . 
It contains about 50 per cent, of hydrogen and 40 per cent, of 
carbon monoxide, that is, about five times more carbon monoxide 
than coal gas. 
On November 20, 1889, two men, R. French and H. Fenwick, both 
intemperate men, occupied a cabin at the Leeds Forge Works ; the 
cabin was 540 c. feet in capacity, and was lighted by two burners, each 
burning 5-5 c. feet of water gas per hour ; the cabin was warmed by a 
cooking stove, also burning water gas, the products of combustion 
escaping into the cabin. Both men went into the cabin after breakfast 
(8.30 a.m.). French was seen often going to and fro, and Fenwick was 
seen outside at 10.30 a.m. At 11.30 the foreman accompanied French 
to the cabin, and found Fenwick asleep, as he thought. At 12.30 p.m. 
French’s son took the men their dinner, which was afterwards found 
uneaten. At that time French also appeared to be asleep ; he was 
shaken by his son, upon which he nodded to his son to leave. The 
door of the cabin appears to have been shut, and all through the morn¬ 
ing the lights kept burning ; no smell was experienced. At 2.30 p.m. 
both the men were discovered dead. It was subsequently found that 
the stove was unlighted, and the water gas supply turned on. 
What attracted most attention to this case was the strange incident 
at the post-mortem examination. The autopsies were begun two days 
after the death, November 22, in a room of 39,000 c. feet capacity. 
There were present Mr T. Scattergood (senior), Mr Arthur Scattergood 
(junior), Mr Hargreaves, three local surgeons, Messrs Brown, Loe, and 
Jessop, and two assistants, Pugh and Spray. Arthur Scattergood first 
fainted ; Mr Scattergood, senior, also had some peculiar sensations, 
viz. tingling in the head and slight giddiness ; then Mr Pugh became 
faint and staggered; and Mr Loe, Mr Brown, and Mr Spray all 
complained. 
These symptoms were not produced, as was at first thought, by some 
volatile gas or vapour emanating from the bodies of the poisoned men, 
but, as subsequently discovered, admitted of a very simple explanation : 
1 Guy's Hospital Heports, 1889 . 
