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I have seen an analysis reporting half a per cent. of calcium oxid, which would make five tons of quick lime in the plowed soil of an acre; whereas the soil not only contained no lime whatever, but was so acid that it needed five tons of ground limestone per acre to correct the acidity.
As previously suggested, a drop or two of the tincture of iron, a grain or two of the reduced iron, or 2 or 3 grains of saccharated ferric oxid, given once or twice in twenty-four hours, is all the iron the body needs from the points of view of the blood and the heart. Calcium: It has lately been learned that calcium is an element which a heart needs for perfect activity.
More probably of copper, whitened by some admixture of zinc, and other metals, of the existence of which in this district there are sufficient indications in the sequel. These mirrors may have been similar to telescope metal. What is here called Tutty, is probably the sublimed floculent white oxid, or flowers of zinc.
If nitrous oxid anesthesia and sleep are chemically identical, then we have a further clue to one of the primary mechanisms of life itself; and as a practical corollary one might be able to produce artificial sleep which would closely resemble normal sleep, but which would have this advantage, that by using an anesthetic which interferes with oxidation the brain-cells might be reconstructed after physical fatigue, after emotional strain, or after the depression of disease.
"The trouble is that when the chemist found calcium in the soil existing in the form of acid silicate, or calcium hydrogen silicate, he reported calcium oxid, or lime, in his analytical statement, assuming apparently that the farmer would understand that the analytical statement did not mean what it said." "But some soils do contain lime, do they not?"
In the human, as in the animal, the degree of acidity parallels the depth of inhalation anesthesia. Within a few seconds after beginning nitrous oxid anesthesia the acidity of the blood is increased. This rapid acidulation is synchronous with almost instantaneous unconsciousness and increased respiration.
In the case of the rabbit in which nitrous oxid was substituted for sleep, the appearance of the brain-cells resembled that in but one other group experimentally examined the brain-cells of hibernating woodchucks. Insanity.
For since nitrous oxid owes its anesthetic effect to its influence upon oxidation, we may infer that sleep also retards the oxidation of the cell contents. If this be true, then it is probable that inhalation anesthetics exert their peculiar influence upon that portion of the brain through which sleep itself is produced.
These observations lead naturally to the question, May not acidity of itself be the actual final cause of death? In view of these facts may we not find that anesthesia and many instances of unconsciousness are merely phenomena of acidity? As has been stated already, we have found that the H-ion concentration of the blood its acidity is increased by alcohol, by ether, and by nitrous oxid.
Morphin and decapitation cause no change in the H-ion concentration. Ether, nitrous oxid, and alcohol produce an increased acidity of the blood which is proportional to the depth of anesthesia. Many of the cases studied were near death, as would be expected, since it is well known that a certain degree of acidity is incompatible with life.
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