OBSERVATIONS OF ARTERIAL OXYGEN CONTENT IN CHILDREN DURING THE INHALATION OF AIR AND 100 PER CENT OXYGEN

Abstract
The arterial O2 saturation of 14 normal children breathing air, as detd. by a modified Roughton-Scholander technique, ranged from 91.5 to 95.3%, with an avg. value of 93.1%. During the inhalation of 100% O2 the blood of each child became fully saturated and in addition an avg. amt. of 1.09 vol. % was carried in physical soln. The arterial O2 saturation while breathing air is 5.5% lower than the avg. value detd. spectrophotometrically, reported by Drabkin and Schmidt. Likewise the arterial O2 content during the inhalation of 100% O2 is 5.3% lower than would be expected on theoretical grounds. No adequate reason for these disparities has yet been advanced.