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Page 34
Perhaps the greatest objection to water gas in the public mind is the
dread of its poisonous properties, due to the carbon monoxide which it
contains; but if we come to consider the evidence before us on the
increase of accidents due to this cause, we are struck by the poor
case which the opponents of water gas are able to make out. No one can
for a moment doubt the fact that carbon monoxide is one of the
deadliest of poisons. It acts by diffusing through the air cells of
the lungs, and forming, with the coloring matter of the blood
corpuscles, a definite compound, which prevents them carrying on their
normal function of taking up oxygen and distributing it throughout the
body, to carry on that marvelous process of slow combustion which not
only gives warmth to the body, but also removes the waste tissue used
up by every action, be it voluntary or involuntary, and by hindering
this, it at once stops life.
All researches on this subject point to the fact that something under
one per cent. only of carbon monoxide in air renders it fatal to
animal life, and this at first seems an insuperable objection to the
use of water gas, and has, indeed, influenced the authorities in
several towns, notably Paris, to forbid its introduction for domestic
consumption. Let us, however, carefully examine the subject, and see,
by the aid of actual figures, what the risk amounts to compared with
the risks of ordinary coal gas.
Many experiments have been made with the view of determining the
percentage of carbon monoxide in air which is fatal to human or,
rather, animal life, and the most reliable as well as the latest
results are those obtained by Dr. Stevenson, of Guy's Hospital, in
consequence of the two deaths which took place at the Leeds forge from
inhaling uncarbureted water gas containing 40 per cent. of carbon
monoxide. He found that one per cent. visibly affected a mouse in one
and a half minutes, and in one hour and three quarters killed it,
while one-tenth of a per cent. was highly injurious. Let us, for the
sake of argument, take this last figure 0.1 per cent. as being a fatal
quantity, so as to be well within the mark.
In ordinary carbureted water gas as supplied by the superheater
processes, such as the Lowe, Springer, etc., the usual percentage of
carbon monoxide is 26 per cent., but in the Van Steenbergh gas--for
certain chemical reasons to be discussed later on--it is generally
about 18 per cent., and rarely rises to 20 per cent. An ordinary
bedroom will be say 12 ft. X 15 ft. X 10 ft., and will therefore
contain 1,800 cubic feet of air, and such a room would be lighted by a
single bats-wing burner consuming not more than four cubic feet of gas
per hour. Suppose now the inmate of that room retires to bed in such a
condition of mental aberration that he prefers to blow out the gas
rather than take the ordinary course of turning it off--a process, by
the way, of putting out gas which is decidedly easier in theory than
in practice, especially in his presumed mental condition--you would
have in one hour the 1,800 cubic feet of gas in the room mixed with
four fifths of a cubic foot of carbon monoxide--the carbureted water
gas being supposed to contain 20 per cent.--or 0.04 per cent. In such
a room, however, if the doors and windows were absolutely air tight,
and there was no fireplace, diffusion through the walls would change
the entire air once an hour, so that the percentage would not rise
above 0.04; while in any ordinary room imperfect workmanship and an
open chimney would change it four times in the hour, reducing the
percentage to 0.01, a quantity which the most inveterate enemy of
water gas could not claim would do more than produce a bad headache,
an ailment quite as likely to have been caused by the same factor that
brought about the blowing out of the gas.
Moreover, we are now talking about the use of carbureted water gas as
an enricher of coal gas, and not as an illuminant to be consumed _per
se._ and we may calculate that it would be probably used to enrich a
16-candle coal gas up to 17.5 candle power. To do this 25 per cent. of
22 candle power carbureted water gas would have to be mixed with it,
and taking the percentage of carbon monoxide in London gas at 5 per
cent.--a very fair average figure--and 18 per cent. as the amount
present in the Van Steenbergh gas, we have 8.25 per cent. of carbon
monoxide in the gas as sent out--a percentage hardly exceeding that
which is found in the rich cannel gas supplied to such towns as
Glasgow, where I am not aware of an unusual number of deaths occurring
from carbon monoxide poisoning.
The carbureted water gas has a smell every bit as strong as coal gas,
and a leak would be detected with equal facility by the nose; and I
think you will agree with me that the cry raised against the use of
carbureted water gas, for this reason, is one of the same character
that hampered the introduction of coal gas itself at the commencement
of this century.
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