Carbon-Dioxide Intoxication in Emphysema: Emergency Treatment by Artificial Pneumoperitoneum

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Abstract
WHEN oxygen is administered to a patient with chronic anoxemia, an elevation of the carbon-dioxide content and combining power of the blood usually occurs. In patients with marked pulmonary emphysema and fibrosis, this elevation is occasionally of profound degree, and a characteristic sequence of events ensues. The features of the clinical syndrome are headache, cutaneous vasodilatation, irrationality, stupor and coma. It is thought that these manifestations are due to carbon-dioxide intoxication. The chain of events leading to carbon-dioxide retention is believed to be as follows: removal of the anoxemic stimulus to respiration by the administered oxygen, reduced pulmonary ventilation, increase . . .