A few months after Luckhardt and Carter had published their articles on the original clinical work with ethylene, Brown1 reported the results of an extensive investigation concerning the explosibility of ethylene mixtures. In this paper, he mentioned the places where explosion may occur as:
(1) While the gas is compressed in the cylinder; (2) after emerging from the cylinder but not mixed with oxygen; (3) in the mixing chamber or distributing apparatus mixed with oxygen and (4) after escaping into the room through the valve in the facepiece.
In the first two locations one is presumably dealing with the pure gas, and whether or not explosions can occur at these points depends on the inherent character of the gas. In order to settle this question definitely, one must know whether it is possible to cause the pure gas to explode or whether it can explode spontaneously. Some gases, such