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Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 17:41:34 -0800 (PST)
From: "Michael J. Black" <mjblackmd@ya*.co*>
Subject: Re: NARCOTIC O2
To: Aquanaut Mail <techdiver@aquanaut.com>

According to the Meyer-Overton hypothesis, narcotic potency of gases
correlates with lipid solubility, and O2 has a lipid solubility of
0.11 (about the same as Argon, 0.14).  Helium, in comparison, has a
lipid solubility of 0.015.  You all know how narcotic Argon is (very),
and how non-narcotic Helium is.  O2 is predicted to be about as
narcotic as Argon by this hypothesis, except that O2 is not inert,
and is readily metabolized.  I believe that is why there is no
listing of relative narcotic potency for O2 in the textbooks (I am
looking at Bennett's chapter on Inert Gas Narcosis and HPNS, in Bove
and Davis' Diving Medicine, 2nd ed.).  It is listed as blank because
the comparison is not valid.  Mike Black
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