Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/483

 *nation, in many of the fatal instances which probably were due to inhalation of carbonous oxide, but in which no recognizable cause of death had been discovered, to explain the event as due to the malign interference of the Devil. In our time it is well understood in the community that the fumes of carbonous oxide constitute the most dangerous gas that one is liable to encounter, but in Hoffmann's day the people appear to have been less well informed concerning this danger than they were in ancient times. In the treatise on this subject which Hoffmann published in 1716, several of the earliest known instances of such poisoning are narrated, the first one being that mentioned very briefly by Aristotle (384-322 B. C.). Then follow two very short references to this subject in the "De rerum natura" of the Roman poet Titus Lucretius Carus (95-52 B. C.). They read as follows: (1) "The fumes of burning charcoal easily affect the brain if thou hast not first taken a drink of water." (Book VI., verse 803.) (2) "If the fumes of the night lamp, after it has been extinguished, are inhaled rather deeply the effect experienced will be the same as if one had been struck down by a blow on the head." (Book VI., verse 792.) The idea that the previous drinking of water is competent to prevent the effects of poisoning by charcoal fumes is declared by Neuburger, the translator of Hoffmann's treatise, to be erroneous.

The earliest really satisfactory description of an instance of non-fatal poisoning by the fumes of burning charcoal is credited by Hoffmann to the Roman Emperor, Julian the Apostate, who reigned from 361 A. D. to 363 A. D. Before he was made Emperor, Julian was intrusted by Constantius II., in 355 A. D., with the government of the Province of Gaul, and in 357 he won a great battle against the Alamanni at Strassburg; after which he took up his residence in the little city of Lutetia, the present Paris. It was undoubtedly