Combatting Oxygen Shortages

Animal kingdom emerged on our planet when the atmosphere was still very poor in oxygen. It is no wonder that living organisms had to adapt themselves to an environment where oxygen was in short supply. However, we usually fail to notice another much more puzzling phenom­enon, namely, that animals living in the presence of exces­sive oxygen have managed to restrain the intensity of the oxidation processes taking place in their bodies as if they were always ready to extinguish a constantly threatening fire.

The amount of environmental oxygen is constant, and, if it does alter, it decreases. This explains why animals have different means of combatting oxygen shortages, but no means of protection against excess oxygen.

Paul Bert was the first to discover that breathing pure oxygen can be poisonous around a hundred years ago. This was such an unexpected discovery that scientists did not believe him and a suspicion arose that the oxygen used by Bert contained various poisonous admixtures. The experiments were repeated many times, but no matter how thoroughly the oxygen was purified, the animals which breathed it for prolonged periods inevitably perished.

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