SEMI-STRANGULATION

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21155, 30 September 1938, Page 10

SEMI-STRANGULATION

DOCTORS’ EXPERIMENTS TESTING OF A MIXTURE LEEDS, September 3. Dr W. S. Sykes, aged 44, of Morley, and Dr Reginald Lawrence, aged 28, of Wakfieeld, have suffered semi-strangu-lation testing a mixture of oxygen and helium which they think may be of use in cases of obstructed breathing or of collapse under an anaesthetic. Writing in the “British Medical Journal,” they say: “As no patients with respiratory difficulties were available, personal experiments were carried out with artificial obstructions. “We tried to obtain many readings in one evening and very soon found that the fatigue caused by semistrangulation produced increasingly rapid intolerance to a repetition of the process.” The “semi-strangulation” was created by fitting a rubber mouthpiece with a screw clamp W’hich was “tightened until considerable constriction was caused.” Normally air contains 20 per cent, oxygen and 30 per cent, nitrogen. Helium is much lighter than nitrogen but has similar properties. The experiments were based on the theory that oxygen and helium, being lighter than oxygen and nitrogen, would pass more freely through a partly obstructed respiratory tube t id help patients through a crisis. The conclusion reached is that the helium and oxygen is about twice as easy to breathe as ordinary air, and that the mixture should prove of great value.