Poisons, Their Effects and Detection / A Manual for the Use of Analytical Chemists and Experts

by Alexander Wynter Blyth

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; consequently, 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 the same house on the opposite side of the 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 two o’clock on Sunday morning the headaches became so severe that the mother got out of bed and renewed the application of vinegar and water all round, after which they all fell asleep, and, so far as the father and mother were concerned, remained completely unconscious until Monday morning.

A man who occupied the house opposite the house tenanted by the last-mentioned family informed the narrator (Dr. Reid) that on Sunday morning the family, consisting of four, were taken seriously ill with a feeling of sickness and depression accompanied by headache; and he also stated that for some time they had smelt what he termed a “fire stink” issuing from the cellar.

The cottage in which the family lived that had suffered so severely was situated about 20 or 30 yards from the shaft of a disused coal mine, and was the end house of a row of cottages. It had a cellar opening into the outer air, but this opening was usually covered over by means of a piece of wood. The adjoining house to this, the occupants of which had for some time suffered from headache, although to a less extent, had a cellar with a similar opening, but supplied with an ill-fitting cover. The house on the opposite side of the road, in which the two birds were found dead, had a cellar opening both at the front and the back; but both these openings, until a little before the occurrence detailed, had been kept closed. The cellars in all cases communicated with the houses by means of doors opening into the kitchens. According to the general account of the occupants, the cellars had smelled of “fire stink,” which, in their opinion, proceeded from the adjoining mine.

The shaft of the disused mine communicated with a mine in working order, and, to encourage the ventilation in this mine, a furnace had for some weeks been lit and suspended in the shaft. This furnace had set fire to the coal in the disused mine and smoke had been issuing from the shaft for four weeks previously. Two days previous to the inquiry the opening of the shaft had been closed over with a view to extinguish the fire.

Dr. Reid considered, from the symptoms and all the circumstances of the case, that the illness was due to carbon monoxide gas penetrating into the cellars from the mine, and from thence to the living- and sleeping-rooms. A sample of the air yielded 0·015 per cent. of carbon monoxide, although the sample had been taken after the cellar windows had been open for twenty-four hours.

§ 42. Detection of Carbon Monoxide.—It may often be necessary to detect carbon monoxide in air and to estimate its amount. The detection in air, if the carbon monoxide is in any quantity, is easy enough; but traces of carbon monoxide are difficult. Where amounts of carbon monoxide in air from half a per cent. upwards are reasonably presumed to exist, the air is measured in a gas measuring apparatus and passed into an absorption pipette charged with alkaline pyrogallic acid, and when all the oxygen has been abstracted, then the residual nitrogen and gases are submitted to an ammoniacal solution of cuprous chloride.

The solution of cuprous chloride is prepared by dissolving 10·3 grms. of copper oxide in 150 c.c. of strong hydrochloric acid and filling the flask with copper turnings; the copper reduces the cupric chloride to cuprous chloride; the end of the reduction is known by the solution becoming colourless. The colourless acid solution is poured into some 1500 c.c. of water, and the cuprous chloride settles to the bottom as a precipitate. The supernatant fluid is poured off as completely as possible and the precipitate washed into a quarter litre flask, with 100 to 150 c.c. of distilled water and ammonia led into the solution until it becomes of a pale blue colour. The solution is made up to 200 c.c. so as to contain about 7·3 grms. per cent. of cuprous chloride.

Such a solution is an absorbent of carbon monoxide; it also absorbs ethylene and acetylene.