Short communication Notice of the singular inflation of a bladder

摘要

In the course of an investigation of mixed gases through capillary openings, the following singular observation was made. A sound bladder with slop-cock was filled about two thirds with coal gas, and the stop-cock shut; the bladder was passed up in this flaccid state, into a bell-jar receiver, filled with carbonic acid gas over water. The bladder was thus introduced into an atmosphere of carbonic acid gas. In the course of twelve hours, instead of being in the flaccid state in which it was left, the bladder was found distended to the utmost, and on the very point of bursting, while most of the carbonic acid gas in the receiver had disappeared. The bladder actually burst in the neck, in withdrawing it from under the receiver. It was found to contain thirty-five parts carbonic acid gas by volume in one hundred. The substance of the bladder was quite fresh to the smell, and appeared to have undergone no change. The carbonic acid gas remaining without in the bell-jar had acquired a very little coal gas. The conclusion is unavoidable, that the close bladder was inflated by the insinuation of carbonic acid gas from without. In a second experiment, a bladder containing rather less coal gas, and similarly placed in an atmosphere of carbonic acid gas, being fully inflated in fifteen hours, was found to have acquired forty parts in one hundred of this latter gas, a small portion of coal gas, left the bladder as before.