IV. Respiration of Hydrogene.
The hydrogene that I employed, was procured from the decomposition of water by means of clean iron filings and diluted sulphuric and muriatic acids. It was breathed in the same manner as nitrous oxide, in the large mercurial airholder.
After a compleat voluntary exhaustion of my lungs in the usual posture, I found great difficulty in breathing hydrogene for so long as half a minute, so as to make a compleat expiration of it. It produced uneasy feelings in the chest, momentary loss of muscular power, and sometimes a transient giddiness.
In some of the experiments that I made; on account of the giddiness, the results were rendered inconclusive, by my removing my mouth from the mouth-piece after expiration, before the assistant could turn the stop-cock.
The purity of the hydrogene was ascertained immediately before the experiment by the test of nitrous gas, and by detonation with oxygene or atmospheric air; generally 12 measures of atmospheric air were fired with 4 of the hydrogene, and if the diminution was to ten or a little more, the gas was judged to be pure.
After the experiment, when the compleat expiration had been made and the common temperature restored; the volume of the gas was noticed, and then a small quantity of it thrown into the mercurial apparatus by means of the conducting tube, to be examined. The carbonic acid was separated by from it by means of solution of potash or strontian; the quantity of oxygene it contained, was ascertained by means of nitrous gas of known composition; the superabundant nitrous gas was absorbed by solution of muriate of iron; and the proportions of hydrogene and nitrogene in the remaining gas, discovered by inflammation with atmospheric air or oxygene in the detonating tube by the electric spark.
a. The two following experiments made upon quantities of hydrogene, equal to those of the nitrous oxide respired in the experiments in the last section, are given as the most accurate of five.
E. 1. I respired at 59° 102 cubic inches of hydrogene apparently pure, for rather less than half a minute, making in this time seven quick respirations.
After the complete expiration, when the common temperature was restored, the gas occupied a space equal to 103 cubic inches nearly. These analised were found to consist of
| Carbonic acid | 4,0 |
| Oxygene | 3,7 |
| Nitrogene | 17,3 |
| Hydrogene | 78,0 |
| 103,0 |