THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY 
DECEMBER,  1893. 
EFFECT  OF  CARBON  DIOXIDE,  CARBONIC  OXIDE,  ; 
SULPHURETED  HYDROGEN  AND  WATER 
AND  COAL  GAS  ON  ANIMAL  LIFE.1 
By  Joseph  R.  Wilson, 
OF  PHILADELPHIA, 
MEMBER  OF  THE  FRANKLIN  INSTITUTE. 
Since  the  health  of  every  individual  is  dependent  upon  the  purity 
of  the  atmosphere,  a  knowledge  of  the  effect  of  impurities  in  the  air  on 
animal  life  is  of  the  highest  importance  to  the  community  at  large,  but 
of  special  importance  to  those  who  work  in  coal,  silver,  lead,  copper 
or  gold  mines,  or  at  iron  furnaces,  coke  ovens,  etc.,  where  impurities 
often  exist,  such  as, 
S.  D. 
CO  2    Choke  damp  or  Carbon  Dioxide,   1*529 
CO     White  damp  or  Carbonic  Oxide,   '9678 
H2S    Sulphureted  Hydrogen  or  Hydrogen  Sulphide,  ....  '1912 
The  statistics  compiled  by  me  from  the  Indices  of  the  Library  of 
the  College  of  Physicians,  Philadelphia,  one  of  the  most  complete 
institutions  in  the  world,  show  that  90  per  cent,  of  the  total  scientific 
experiments  on  the  effects  of  noxious  gases  on  animal  life  have  been 
made  by  the  Germans  and  French,  and  for  the  last  decade  scarcely 
any  experiments  have  been  made  in  this  direction  by  scientists  of 
any  nationality,  the  results  obtained  by  our  forefathers  being 
accepted  with  a  credulity  seldom  encountered  in  other  branches  of 
science.  In  addition  to  this,  the  poverty  of  information  in  the 
standard  references  on  this  subject  is  so  great,  that  were  any 
.  particular  knowledge  required,  it  would  be  necessary  to  make  new 
experiments  to  determine  the  same.     With  these  facts  before 
1  Lecture  delivered  before  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy,  November 
21,  1893. 
(56i) 
