Laboratory of the Department of Health.
Engineer Sondên.
One of the most active cooperators in the develO; / lent of ::
respiration apparatus at Stockholm is Engineer Sondên, a man of re¬
markable technical skill and the greatest ingenuity. His relations
with the University are not direct and fce has a special laboratory in
what corresponds to our Board of Health. He has been especially
interested in the Pettersson gas analysis apparatus and is at present
working upon a modification of this apparatus with a view to determining
the amount of oxygen in normal air with great exactness. This was
done primarily with the idea of studying the differences of oxygen
content in air under varying hygienic conditions. recognizing the
great accuracy and sensitiveness of the Pettersson apparatus for
determining carbon dioxide, Sondên believes that the same principle may
be adapted for the determination of oxygen. His attempts to secure
this accuracy have, as yet, however, been unsuccessful. The appara¬
tus upon 'which he has been working is extremely complicated and is
shewn in igs. 69 and 70« He is attempting to determine oxygen by
admitting to the air a definite volume of pure hydrogen^ passing this
through a quartz tube containing platinum which is heated to incandescence
and then determining the diminution in volume.
Sondên objects to the usual method of determining oxygen by
absorption in a solution of either potassium pyrogallate or sodium
hydrosulphite » on the ground that the e is a variation in the partial
pressure of nitrogen at the beginning amd, end of the experiment. The
ground is well taken theoretically but the difficulties of determining