544. The method of resuscitating persons apparently dead from inhaling carbonic acid gas. When life is apparently 251 extinct from breathing carbonic acid gas, the person should be carried into the open air. The head and shoulders should be slightly elevated; the face and chest should be sponged or sprinkled with cold water, or cold vinegar and water, while the limbs are wrapped in dry, warm blankets. In this, as in asphyxia from other causes, immediately resort to artificial respiration.
543. What treatment should be adopted in asphyxia from electricity? From hanging? 544. What should be the treatment in asphyxia from inhaling carbonic acid gas?
Observations. 1st. Many persons have died from breathing carbonic acid that was formed by burning charcoal in an open pan or portable furnace, for the purpose of warming their, sleeping-rooms. This is not only produced by burning charcoal, but is evolved from the live coals of a wood fire; and being heavier than air, it settles on the floor of the room; and, if there is no open door or chimney-draught, it will accumulate, and, rising above the head of an individual, will cause asphyxia or death.
2d. In resuscitating persons apparently dead from causes already mentioned, if a pair of bellows cannot be procured immediately, let their lungs be inflated by air expelled from the lungs of some person present. To have the expired air as pure as possible, the person should quickly inflate his lungs, and instantly expel the air into those of the asphyxiated person. Place the patient in pure air, admit attendants only into the apartment, and send for a physician without delay.
What sad results frequently follow the burning of charcoal in a closed room? What suggestion in resuscitating asphyxiated persons?
CHAPTER XXVII.
ANIMAL HEAT.
545. The true sources of animal heat, or calorification, are still imperfectly known. No hypothesis has, as yet, received the concurrent assent of physiologists. We see certain phenomena, but the ultimate causes are hidden from our view. Its regular production, to a certain degree, is essential both to animal and vegetable life.