History
Aristotle (384–322 BC) first recorded that burning coals emanated toxic fumes. An ancient method of execution was to shut the criminal in a bathing room with smouldering coals. What was not known was the mechanism of death. Galen (129–199 AD) speculated that there was a change in the composition of the air that caused harm when inhaled. In 1776, the French chemist de Lassone produced CO by heating zinc oxide with coke, but mistakenly concluded that the gaseous product was hydrogen, as it burned with a blue flame. The gas was identified as a compound containing carbon and oxygen by the Scottish chemist William Cumberland Cruikshank in the year 1800. Its toxic properties on dogs were thoroughly investigated by Claude Bernard around 1846.
During World War II, a gas mixture including carbon monoxide was used to keep motor vehicles running in parts of the world where gasoline and diesel fuel were scarce. External (with a few exceptions) charcoal or wood gas generators were fitted, and the mixture of atmospheric nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and small amounts of other gases produced by gasification was piped to a gas mixer. The gas mixture produced by this process is known as wood gas. Carbon monoxide was also used on a small scale during the Holocaust at some Nazi extermination camps, the most notable by gas vans in Chelmno, and in the Action T4 "euthanasia" program.
Read more about this topic: Carbon Monoxide
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