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(To those who read this from the TECHDIVER list and thus might have missed
the beginning on the Hyperbaric Medicine list, this is the conclusion of
someone asking a good question, and getting a better than normal response rate).
> The response from participants of the list was most gratifying. Now,
>quick, someone else ask something. :-)
Well, here is one.
Nitrox divers tout the extra safety offered by the lower nitrogen content
of their breathing mix. So far, fine. At depth, you'll breath a lower N2
partial pressure and a higher O2 pp. This means that less nitrogen will be
dissolved in the tissues and blood. The assumed thing in all that is that
the oxygen gets metabolized, and therefore, is not dissolved anywhere at
all, so it does not contribute to an eventual bending (or is it bendage?). Fine.
However, the body needs a given amount of oxygen, and this is regardless
of depth or partial pressure or whatnot, and giving it some O2 at a higher
pp means that the body will get more of it.
The question is (pass the enveloppe):
What does happen to the extra O2 when one breathes a higher than normal
pp O2? Is it that when the tissues/blood/CNS are saturated with O2 (that is
they can't take anymore) that O2 toxicity kicks in?
---========================================================---
For me, the most incredible thing is that the americans
have been able to send men to the moon without using
either microprocessors nor the metric system.
---========================================================---
Marc Dufour, alias mdufour@ca*.or* depuis 1994
[\] ACUC 6 31874 http://WWW.CAM.ORG/~mdufour
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