Standing guard over the flame of life
Oxygen Monitoring in Acute Medicine
Dave Sainsbury
Staff Anaesthetist,  Women’s & Children’s Hospital
Adelaide, South Australia
This opening slide reinforces the importance of oxygen monitoring in anaesthesia. It is taken from the foreword to the first edition of "Applied Respiratory Physiology" by JF Nunn (Butterworths, London-Boston). The image was provided by JF Severinghaus and represents the god Hypnos and the flame of respiration. But why is oxygen so important.