Replying to the Coroner, Professor Rodgers said he did not think the
deficiency of oxygen would act injuriously upon a delicate person
passing through the tunnels; and he considered that the amount of
carbonic and sulphurous gases in the tunnels could not have been
injurious to the woman. There was not a sufficient accumulation of
these gases to be of injury to the public health. The woman had eaten
heartily, was laced tightly, and had a diseased heart; he, therefore,
did not think the deficiency of oxygen could have hastened her death.
The joint report of Drs. Bachhoffner, Letheby, and Whitmore was then
read and put in evidence. It stated that the analysers collected
samples of the air on three separate occasions:—First, immediately
after the trains had ceased running at night; second, just before
they commenced running in the morning; and third, in the afternoon,
between four and five o’clock, a period of the day when there was
generally the largest amount of traffic. The samples, twenty-eight in
number, were analysed for sulphurous acid, carbonic acid, carbonic
oxide, coal gas, and oxygen. The presence of sulphurous acid having
been sought by the most delicate chemical test—namely, its action upon
iodic acid and starch, which was capable of showing the presence of
one part by volume of sulphurous acid in 100,000 parts of air, but by
such test the presence of that acid could not be detected; and from
this the analysers concluded that its volume was less than the above
in the tunnels. The mean proportion of carbonic acid was about 6 in
each volume of 10,000. The amounts of coal-gas and of carbonic oxide
were so small as to be barely discoverable. The amount of oxygen in
the tunnels and stations was not in any case deficient. These results
proved that in no instance was the air found to be vitiated to any
material extent, although the air taken in the afternoon was less pure
than that taken at night. The presence of sulphurous acid gas in the
tunnels and stations, which at times was appreciable to both taste and
smell, must not be taken as an indication that this gas existed in
dangerous quantities, for as little as one part of this gas in 100,000
parts of atmospheric air was strongly perceptible both to taste and
smell. The partial combustion of the wood forming the breaks, when
acting upon the tires of the wheels, also produces a pungent smell. The
analysers were of opinion that, having regard to the cubical volume of
the trains, the short time occupied by them in passing through the
tunnels and stations, the large volume of air they displaced, and the
increased impetus given to the horizontal movements of the air by the
rapidity of their transit, the vitiation of the atmosphere could not
be of a serious character, and this accorded with the results of their
analysis. The tunnels were dry and free from infiltration of liquid
or other matters prejudicial to health. The general health of the
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