Carbon Dioxide
I have read several articles in The Times about the gas cloud that has killed many people in Cameroon, Africa. That gas, carbon dioxide, has been labeled as “poisonous.” I submit to you that carbon dioxide is not poisonous.
When one dies in an atmosphere of high concentration of carbon dioxide, he has not been poisoned by the carbon dioxide; he dies from lack of oxygen, and has suffocated or asphyxiated, just as if he had been strangled, or if he had drowned.
Carbon dioxide is no more poisonous to the person who dies in an atmosphere of carbon dioxide than is the water in which a person drowns.
Consider that carbon dioxide is a normal product of metabolism, and if exists in a concentration of approximately 4% in our expired air at the resting state without getting too technical.
Carbon monoxide , on the other hand, is deadly; a true poison.
HYMAN SWERDLOW MD
Los Angeles
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