![]() ![]() In the late 1890s, Haldane began experimenting on small animals like white mice and canaries. Haldane also investigated numerous mine disasters, and discovered that carbon monoxide was the lethal constituent that killed most miners after noticing that their bodies were stained cherry-pink-the result of a compound that formed in blood when carbon monoxide combined with hemoglobin. During the First World War, Haldane went to the front to identify the poison gas used by the Germans, leading to the invention of the first gas mask. Haldane would famously lock himself up in sealed chambers breathing potentially lethal cocktails of gases while he took notes recording how it felt to be slowly poisoned. Photo credit: The idea of using canaries was first proposed by John Haldane, a Scottish physiologist noted for his discoveries of the physiology of breathing and the nature of gases and its effect on the human body. The miners would then evacuate the danger area. If the canary loses consciousness, the door to the box would be closed and the valve opened, allowing oxygen from the tank on top to be released and revive the canary. It would start swaying noticeably on its perch and eventually fall of it. If there is carbon monoxide in the air, the canary would show signs of distress. The glass and metal box has a circular open door in the front to let air in, but a grill prevents the canary from escaping. When a disaster strikes inside a mine, rescue workers would descend into the mine carrying a canary in a Resuscitator. The odorless and colorless gas is equally deadly to both humans and canaries alike, but canaries are much more susceptible to the gas, and reacts more quickly and visibly than humans do, thus alerting miners to the presence of the poisonous gas. Underground mines can contain potentially deadly gases such as carbon monoxide that can form during an accident such as fire or an explosion. Until about thirty years ago, coal miners used to go down to work carrying canaries with them in glass chambers such as these. The cylinder attached to the top of the metal box contains life giving oxygen. ![]() This device is used not to kill canaries, but to revive them. Throw in your enemy-in this case, a small innocent canary-close the hatch, turn open the valve to let in poisonous gas from the cylinder above, and then laugh manically as the bird suffocates and die. This peculiar device, in the collection of the Science Museum in South Kensington, London, looks like a tiny gas chamber a movie villain would use. ![]()
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