HEAD-IN-BAG TESTS

Evening Star, Issue 23093, 20 October 1938, Page 20

HEAD-IN-BAG TESTS

DOCTORS SUFFER TO AIO SCIENCE Tests in which two doctors halfsuffocated each other time after time to reveal a life-saving combination of gases are expected to prove of great value to medical science. It was in a locked room at a private house in Leeds that Dr W. S. Sykes, aged 44, of Morley, and Dr Reginald Lawrence, aged 28, of Wakefield, placed a rubber bag over their heads and obstructed their breathing almost to nil. They gave up only when the effects of semi-strangulation brought them to exhaustion. They took turns. While one of them went through the test the other held a watch and took note of the time that passed before suffocation point was reached. , . Thev found that when the bag was filled "with a mixture of helium and oxygen they could breathe longer than when it contained ordinary air.

SEMI-STRANGULATIOX.

The best return of the tests was mads by Dr Lawrence, a non-smoker, who lasted lOmin 21sco before reaching exhaustion.

Commenting on the experiments in the British Medical Journal, they point out:—

‘‘We tried to obtain many readings in one evening, and very soon foundi that the fatigue caused by sepn-stran<*u-lation produced increasingly rapid mtolerance to a repetition of the process.

/‘As so patients with respiratory difficulties were available, the personal experiments had to be carried out with artificial obstructions.”

The “ semi - strangulation ” was created by fitting a rubber mouthpiece with a screw clamp, which was “ tightened until considerable constriction was caused.’ ’

■ Dr Sykes and Dr Lawrence have coma to the conclusion that an artificial atmosphere of helium and oxygen is about twice as easy to breathe as ordinary air, and that the mixture should be of great value in cases of-'respiratory obstruction, or in cases in which it H essential to economise muscular effort:-

It is understood that helium-oxygea mixture is already proving its value hi cases of post-operative collapse at Leeds General Infirmary. In one case—that of a girl of 20 whose heart had almost stopped beating after a grave operation —the mixture saved her life.

The cost of the new helium is approximately 2s 6d per cubic foot. It is a by-product in the manufacture of oxygen from liquid air. It is possible that it will in future find a considerable application in deep-sea diving.