Xref: utzoo sci.bio:2341 sci.chem:498 sci.med:12471
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!husc6!spdcc!dyer
From: dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.chem,sci.med
Subject: Re: Butane death
Message-ID: <4638@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM>
Date: 22 Sep 89 13:37:33 GMT
References: <89262.194442RAV103@PSUVM.BITNET> <3398@kitty.UUCP> <4633@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM> <3400@kitty.UUCP>
Reply-To: dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer)
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
Lines: 34

In article <3400@kitty.UUCP> larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes:
>	Congratulations - you caught me in a typographical error.  I had
>meant to say "methanehemoglobin" instead of "methemoglobin", which is
>entirely different and much more common.
>	However, my typo had no real bearing on the context of my article,
>which would be clear had you included the sentence preceding that which
>you quoted: "With respect to direct toxic affects of butane, these may
>well be minimal."

Larry, you might like to think that this is a game of competition and
one-up-manship, but I don't.  In any event, I think such a clarification
was fairly important, and I'd expect the same if I had made such a statement.
An article which claims (even via typo) that methane causes methemoglobinemia
certainly deserves a correction.  I mean, we're discussing people abusing
inhaled hydrocarbons.  If someone compares butane to methane (not an
unreasonable comparison), and then makes a misstatement about methane,
it should be noted.  Why would including a conjecture of yours about
butane's toxicity make any difference?

>	In any event, methane does happen to combine with hemoglobin in
>a manner analgous to that of carbon monoxide.

The chemistry of this must be interesting, since carbon monoxide and
methane don't resemble each other bond-wise.  I'd always thought that
methane was rather inert.  Methane is always mentioned in toxicology
textbooks as a simple asphyxiant.  If it combines with hemoglobin, it
must have substantially less affinity than carbon monoxide, or methane
would have a much greater reputation for toxicity.


-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer
dyer@arktouros.mit.edu, dyer@hstbme.mit.edu