Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/374

1883.] than the phenomena fairly deserve. It is this feeling which makes me send for your acceptance or rejection an account of an effect, new to me, and to all to whom I have mentioned it, and which seems to have some valuable applications.

At one of the scientific meetings at the apartments of His Royal Highness the President of the Royal Society, whilst speaking of certain men who, by means of peculiar apparatus for breathing, could walk about at the bottom of waters, and also of the pearl fishers, Sir Graves C. Haughton described to me an observation he had made, by the application of which a man could hold his breath about twice as long as under ordinary circumstances. It is as follows:—If a person inspire deeply, he will be able immediately after to hold breath for a time, varying with his health, and also very much with the state of exertion or repose in which he may be at the instant. A man, during an active walk, may not be able to cease from breathing for more than half a minute, who, after a period of rest on a chair or in bed, may refrain for a minute or a minute and a half, or even two minutes. But if that person will prepare himself by breathing in a manner deep, hard and quick (as he would naturally do after running), and, ceasing that operation with his lungs full of air, will then hold his breath as long as he is able, he will find that the time during which he can remain without breathing will be double, or even more than double the former, other circumstances being the same. I hope that I have here stated Sir Graves C. Haughton's communication to me correctly; at all events, whilst confirming his observation by personal experience, I found the results to be as above.

Whilst thus preparing myself; I always find that certain feelings come on, resembling in a slight degree those produced by breathing a small dose of nitrous oxide; slight dizziness and confusion in the head are at last produced; but on ceasing to breathe, the feeling gradually goes off, no inconvenience results from it either at the time or afterwards, and I can hold my breath comfortably for a minute and a quarter, or a minute and a half, walking briskly about in the mean time.

Now this effect may be rendered exceedingly valuable. There are many occasions on which a person who can hold breath for a minute or two minutes, might save the life of another. If, in a brewer's fermenting vat, or an opened