By F. LEE RODKEY, JOHN D. O’NEAL, AND HAROLD A. COLLISON T HE FUNDAMENTAL LAW describing the competitive combination of oxygen and carbon monoxide with hemoglobin was defined by Douglas, Haldane, and Haldane’ in 1912. At equilibrium the concentration of these two gases 1)ound to hemoglobin and in the gaseous phase were related by the equation : ( COHb) X ( 02)/( O2Hb) X ( CO ) K where K is the ...

During the last decade, the recreational diving community demonstrated a renewed interest in deep scuba diving. In spite of instructional agency decree, increasing numbers of divers are answering the call of the deep. Mixtures of helium, nitrogen, and oxygen were used to extend scuba diving depth beyond 800 feet. This paper explores individual motivations, physiological responses, and diver res...

Hyperbaric nitrogen-oxygen exposure developed in rats a decrement of the striatal dopamine release, which was reversed by repetitive exposures. This dopamine decrease could be the result of the antagonistic effect of nitrogen on NMDA receptors. The increment of the dopamine release, following repetitive exposures to nitrogen, could be attributed to a desensitisation of NMDA receptors to the eff...

Moving and acting underwater within recreational or occupational activities require intact executive functions, since they subserve higher cognitive functions such as successful self-regulation, coping with novel situations, and decision making; all of which could be influenced by nitrogen narcosis due to elevated partial pressure under water. However, specific executive functions that could pr...

ized in 1869 by a French physician, Claude Bernard, who was the first to give a hypodermic injection of morphine as a basal narcotic before administering ether or chloroform. As with the methods of anaesthesia itself, however, very little further real progress was made until the last twenty or thirty years. During the past ten years it has become the exception to administer an anaesthetic witho...

A 17-year-old Japanese woman with rigid spine syndrome (RSS) presented with respiratory failure leading to CO2 narcosis. The clinical symptoms were drowsiness, asterixis and cardiac arrhythmias. Tracheostomy and temporary ventilatory support abolished these symptoms. However, polygraphic sleep studies without a ventilator revealed Cheyne-Stokes respiration and profound arterial oxygen desaturat...

We saw a patient who presented with carbon dioxide narcosis and acute respiratory failure due to an exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. We intubated and 12 hours later he had recovered consciousness and could cooperate with noninvasive ventilation, at which point we extubated and used a helmet to provide noninvasive positive-pressure ventilation in assist/control mode, and th...

Doig, W. B. (1971). Archives of Disease in Childhood, 46, 243. Value of arterialized capillary blood gas analysis in lower respiratory tract infection in childhood. Blood gas analysis on arterialized capillary blood in 70 young infants yielded satisfactory information about oxygen therapy. Inspired oxygen concentrations above 40% are often required to raise the capillary Po2 of hypoxic infants ...