The proportion
usually present in air is 0.04 per cent.
_Symptoms._--Inhalation of the _pure_ gas causes spasm of the glottis,
insensibility, and death from asphyxia, at once; _diluted_, causes sense
of weight in forehead and back of head, giddiness, vomiting, somnolence,
loss of muscular power. Insensibility, stertorous breathing, lividity of
face and body, and death from asphyxia. Convulsions occasionally.
_Post-Mortem Appearances._--Face swollen and livid, or calm and pale;
lividity is most marked in eyelids, lips, ears, etc.; limbs usually
flaccid, abdomen distended; right side of heart, lungs, and large veins,
gorged with dark-coloured blood. Brain and membranes congested.
_Treatment._--Pure air, cold affusion, stimulants, artificial
respiration, galvanism, inhalation of oxygen, venesection, transfusion.
=Carbonic Oxide.=--This is one of the most poisonous of gases. It is
evolved in the process of burning charcoal and coke in stoves or
furnaces. Water-gas, obtained by passing steam over heated coke,
contains 40 per cent. of the substance, the remainder being chiefly
hydrogen. It forms the chief part of the deadly 'choke damp' after an
explosion in a mine.
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