Oxygen Poisoning in Mammals

1. Oxygen in concentrations of over 70 per cent of an atmosphere is poisonous to dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs and mice. 2. The poisonous effects manifest themselves in drowsiness, anorexia, loss of weight, increasing dyspnea, cyanosis and death from oxygen want. 3. The cause of oxygen want is a destructive lesion of the lungs. 4. The lesion may be characterized grossly as an hemorrhagic edema. Microscopically there is to be seen in varying degrees of intensity (a) capillary engorgement with hemorrhage, (b) the presence of interstitial and intraalveolar serum, (c) hypertrophy and desquamation of alveolar cells, (d) interstitial and alveolar infiltration of mononuclear cells. 5. The type of tissue reaction is not characteristic of an infectious process and no organisms have been recovered at autopsy from the heart's blood or from lung puncture. 6. The poisonous effects of inhalations of oxygen-rich mixtures do not appear to be related to impurities in the oxygen, nor are they related to faulty ventilation, excessive moisture or increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the chambers in which the experimental animals were confined.