COMBUSTION GASES
Toxic effects have been produced by inhalation of the gases caused by explosives. The principal gases are carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen. Gunpowder yields a considerable amount of CO and sulphuretted hydrogen. Nitro-glycerine, dynamite, and gun-cotton yield a large amount of CO. Tonite yields very little CO, and roburite none. Smokeless powders give off CO.
The manufacture of “roburite” and “sicherheit,” which contain dinitro-benzine, is fraught with danger from this substance, causing, in acute cases, cyanosis of the face or the whole body, headache, vertigo, paresis, coldness, quick pulse, dyspnœa, shallow breathing with long intervals, and coma. Vomiting may occur, and the blood becomes a chocolate colour. A chronic form of poisoning produces lividity and cyanosis, with gastritis, hepatic enlargement and jaundice, paræsthesia, numbness, and cramps in the muscles, amblyopia with concentric contraction of vision-fields, and central scotoma. The blood is like that of pernicious anæmia, and the urine brown or blackish.