Value of oxygen gas in the treatment of disease

Abstract

The discovery of oxygen by Priestley, seems to have had an influence equally great on chemistry and Medicine. After that event new theories .of respiration and disease sprang up abundantly, and the gas was almost immediately made use of as a remedy.But, this writer is bound to confess, that, in his hands, the use of oxygen, has been of little avail. Truly enough, he chiefly employed it as a last resource, in cases of such gravity, that a recovery would have been little short,of miraculous. Still, the good effects observed, were of so evanescent and temporary a character, that, (with one slight .omission) he feels inclined to re-echo the words of Pareira, "It is remarkable that electricity and oxygen, two agents of vast importance in nature, should possess but slight remedial powers".