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An irrespirable gas, remaining after an explosion of fire damp in mines; choke damp.

“Black damp” consists of accumulations of irrespirable gases, mostly nitrogen, which cause the lights to burn dimly, and the term “white damp” is sometimes applied to carbon monoxide.

Effects of Impure Air.—Carbonic acid, in its pure form, is irrespirable, causing rapid death by suffocation.

In a flaming building, indeed, the mixture of air with the smoke never permits the carbonic acid to become so dense as to be irrespirable; but in a place where the gas is present in undue quantity, the fragments of lime would materially mitigate its action.

His impression is, "that the carbon is not procured from without, but naturally deposited, as life advances, in the substance of the respiratory organs; and that this deposit of carbon causes death, by rendering the lungs irrespirable, while, at the same time, it has much influence in modifying the progress of tubercular disease; so that, if the tubercular affection was not cured, its progress was so far checked, that life has been very long preserved."