Carbon Monoxide

Safety First campaigns and horrible examples have informed all except those who will not learn that one of the products of imperfect combustion in the cylinders of a gasoline engine is carbon monoxide, a gas toxic and often fatal--in sufficient concentration--to human beings. Engines running in closed garages have been the cause of a rapidly increasing death list in recent years. The building of large vehicular tunnels, which are difficult to ventilate, has multiplied the danger. Only a fortnight ago, in the new Liberty Tunnels, Pittsburgh (TIME, Feb. 4), many persons were overcome on account of the high concentration of CO attendant upon auto congestion in a streetcar strike. Last Summer, Dr. Yandell Henderson, Professor of Applied Physiology at Yale University, suggested as a partial solution that automobile exhausts be extended from the horizontal position at the level of the axle to a vertical one discharging like a chimney at the height of seven or eight feet. He conducted extensive experiments on Fifth Avenue, New York, and other motor-congested highways, proved that CO, even when not so dense as to cause prostration, affects people who inhale it adversely. The gas is heavier than air, and when discharged near the ground it stays there at the level of pedestrians. Professor Henderson's idea was a purely mechanical method of dissipating the fumes in open air. Now, however, comes Dr. Miller Reese Hutchison, inventor of the Klaxon auto horn, acoustic devices for the deaf, etc., with a short-cut to the heart of the problem--a chemical compound, which, introduced into the gasoline, eliminates most of the monoxide from the exhaust fumes, as well as the bothersome carbon deposits in the cylinders. The nature of the compound was not revealed, but the formula will be patented. When tested in the Pittsburgh Experiment Station of the U. S. Bureau of Mines, which is the chief centre of gas research in the country, a mixture of one ounce of the substance in five gallons of gasoline gave off 3.9% of carbon monoxide, as compared with 5.6% with the straight gasoline. Larger doses still further decreased the CO coefficient until between three and four ounces was reached, which Dr. Hutchison considers the ideal mixture. The compound will be inexpensive to manufacture, and will, if the results are sustained, make garages and tunnels as safe as mountain tops. The Society of Automotive Engineers is greatly interested in the discovery.

Hutchison is an electrical engineer, southern by birth and training. Since 1910 he has been associated with Thomas A. Edison; for several years he was chief engineer of the Edison Laboratories. In 1917 he formed the Miller Reese Hutchison Corporation to market his own inventions and to distribute the Edison storage battery under an agreement with Mr. Edison. During the War he gave his entire time to naval engineering work for the Government. He is the owner of more than 600 patents and is internationally known in engineering circles. His offices are on the 51st (top) floor of the Woolworth Building, Manhattan.