DOCTOR’S

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 714, 13 July 1929, Page 12

DOCTOR’S

OXYGEN INJECTED WITH HYPODERMIC NEEDLE TREATMENT OF PNEUMONIA The new method of injecting oxygen under the skin in pneumonia cases was explained recently at the Infants’ Hospital, London, to doctors from the Inter-State Post-Graduate Assembb' of North America, who have been making a tour of British hospitals. It is the invention of an Australian physician, Dr. Swift. The idea underlying it is that a lung which is already so completely blocked up that it cannot absorb air, as in pneumonia, is equally’ unable to absorb oxygen. The present method of administering oxygen by letting it escape over the face of the patient is unsatisfactory' and wasteful, much of it being lost into the air. But the lung is only' a -way in for oxy'gen. Any other mode of entry is just as good, provided the oxygen can be made available for the whole ! of the body's needs. By the new method the gas is forced, | by r its own pressure, Through a j hypodermic needle inserted under the ! skin of the chest. There is no leakage and absorption is made much easier, as the gas is dissolved directly ! into the blood stream.