Gas poisoning decreases your oxygen supply. If you live with a slow, undetected leak for a long period of time, lack of oxygen could eventually lead to seizures. People exposed to natural gas poisoning for long periods of time may end up with a variety of long term health issues.
A: The Republican Party formed in 1854 to oppose the extension of slavery. Many of the people who joined the new party were Conscience Whigs, northern Whigs dissatisfied with their party's attempts to restrain slavery's growth.
The party splintered in 1824 into the Jacksonian movement (which became the Democratic Party in 1828) and the short-lived National Republican Party (later succeeded by the Whig Party). The term Democratic-Republican is used especially by modern political scientists for the first Republican Party (as opposed to the modern Republican Party founded in 1854). It is also known as the Jeffersonian Republicans.