CARBON MONOXIDE. 
§ 470 
79 
eight burners in the room were turned partly on and not lighted, and 
each of the eight burners poured water gas into the room. 
In 1891 occurred some cases of poisoning 1 by CO which are probably 
unique. The cases in question happened in January in a family at 
Darlaston. The first sign of anything unusual having happened to the 
family most affected was the fact that up to 9 a.m., Sunday morning, 
January 18, none of the family had been seen about. The house was 
broken into by the neighbours ; and the father, mother, and three 
children were found in bed apparently asleep, and all efforts to rouse 
them utterly failed. The medical men summoned arrived about 10 a.m. 
and found the father and mother in a state of completemnconsciousness, 
and two of the children, aged 11 and 14 years, suffering from pain and 
sickness and diarrhoea ; the third child had by this time been removed 
to a neighbouring cottage. 
Dr Partridge, who was in attendance, remained with the patients three 
hours, when he also began to suffer from headache ; while others, who 
remained in the house longer, suffered more severely and complained of 
an indefinite feeling of exhaustion. These symptoms pointed to some 
exciting cause associated with the surroundings of the cottage ; conse¬ 
quently, in the afternoon the two children were removed to another 
cottage, and later on the father and mother also. All the patients, with 
the exception of the mother, who was still four days afterwards suffering 
from the effects of an acute attack, had completely recovered. The 
opinion that the illness was owing to some local cause was subsequently 
strengthened by the fact that two canaries and a cat had died in the 
night in the kitchen of the cottage—the former in a cage and the latter 
in a cupboard, the door of which was open. Also, in a house on the 
opposite side of tKe same road, the occupants of which had for some time 
suffered from headache and depression, two birds were found dead in 
their cage in the kitchen. It is important to notice that all these animals 
died in the respective kitchens of the cottages, and, therefore, on the 
ground floor, while the families occupied the first floor. 
The father stated that, for a fortnight or three weeks previous to the 
serious illness, he and the whole family had complained of severe frontal 
headache and a feeling of general depression. This feeling was continuous 
day and night in the case of the rest of the family, but in his case, 
during the day, after leaving the house for his work, it gradually passed 
off, to return again during the night. The headaches were so intense 
that the whole family regularly applied vinegar rags to their heads, on 
going to bed each night during this period, for about three weeks. About 
2 o’clock on Sunday morning the headaches became so severe that 
the mother got out of bed and renewed the application of vinegar and 
1 “ Notes on Cases of Poisoning by the Inhalation of Carbon Monoxide,” by Dr 
George Reid, Medical Officer of Health, County of Stafford, Public Health , iii. 304. 
