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>Bruce Gerhard says:

>All of this brings up another possibility which I shall advance, obviously (I
>hope) tongue-in-cheek.  It should be possible to reduce (or eliminate) the
>possibility of CNS oxygen toxicity by adding a little carbon monoxide to the
>breathing mixture.  At about 10 atmospheres the amount of dissolved oxygen
>becomes comparable to the amount normally carried by the hemoglobin, and it
>should be possible to go several times that depth before encountering CNS
>symptoms.  Someone was asking about drugs to prevent CNS oxygen toxicity.
>Isnt this much better?  It would be amusing for someone to calculate the
>amount of CO required as a function of depth and the number of hours of
>decompression required (here the kinetics of the dissociation reaction would
>also have to be considered) to get rid of the carbon monoxide before
>returning to the surface!

How about this possibility..  If @ 10atm the amount of dissolved oxygen
available for metabolism is equivalent to that normally carried by blood born
hemoglobin, then you wouldn't need any blood circulating in your body at all.
You could just have saline running through you veins.  Perhaps if the oxtox
could be overcome, major surgical proceedures could be performed in this way
in the far future.  (Yes blood is performing other import. fxns., I know.)

Well dive docs?

And another thought..While writing something it ocurred to me that a diver
could forgo the entire table and computer dissolved gas tracking and just use
a portable, wearable, (submergeable) ultrasonic doppler meter to warn a diver
if any bubbles form, and to what extent they form.  A sort of decompression
bends alarm for a diver on the fly.  It would not err, as a computer can,
because of variations in a divers age, weight, hydration, temperature, work
load, ect.  A quick search turned up no such device available or claimed. What
do you think?  Is it feasable and will we see it in the future?


Mark

"The more the pity that fools may not speak
Wisely what wise men do foolishly"
Shakespeare

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