Abstract
Carbon monoxide has been called a pedagogical poison because its mechanism of action is simple and can be taught in introductory chemistry, biology and health sciences. Carbon monoxide’s affinity for hemoglobin is 220 times greater than that of oxygen and an exposure to a partial carbon monoxide pressure of only 1 mm Hg replaces more than half the oxygen on hemoglobin with CO*. A person in an atmosphere with 0.05% CO dies in eight hours, at a concentration of 0.1% death comes within an hour (Shephard, 1983; Ellenhorn and Barceloux, 1988).
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Abbreviations
- CO:
-
carbon monoxide
- O2 :
-
oxygen
- COHb:
-
carboxyhemoglobin
- MWC:
-
Monod Wyman and Changeux
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© 1992 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Senozan, N.M. (1992). Carbon Monoxide Poisoning: Physico-Chemical Principles and Environmental Applications. In: Müezzinoğlu, A., Williams, M.L. (eds) Industrial Air Pollution. NATO ASI Series, vol 31. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-76051-8_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-76051-8_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-76053-2
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