CHAPTER XVII 



THE EFFECT OF HIGH ALTITUDES UPON THE DISSOCIATION 

 CUEA 7 E OF AN INDIVIDUAL 



THIS problem has now formed the subject-matter of a couple 

 of expeditions, the first of which went to Teneriffe in 1910 under the 

 auspices of the International Commission for the Study of High 

 Altitudes and Solar Radiation. The President of the Commission, 

 Professor Pannwitz, is much to be thanked for the completeness of 

 the arrangements, which made it possible to carry through a great 

 amount of scientific work in a very short time. 



The island of Teneriffe is in some ways especially suitable for 

 such work, owing to the fact of its very temperate climate, temperate 

 in the sense of being neither too hot, too cold, nor too windy. Our 

 object in working there was the study of the human subject when at 

 rest. In Teneriffe this object is particularly easy of attainment. No 

 one in the island, so far as my experience goes, either takes or wants 

 to take violent exercise. In the Alps no one has any other object in 

 view than exercise in some form or other, but to walk up the Peak of 

 Teneriffe would be only less peculiar than to ascend to Col d'Olen on 

 a mule. 



Our sea-level station in Teneriffe was at Puerto Orotava, where 

 we stayed at the Grand Hotel Humbert, and every facility was given 

 us for carrying out our work. The hotel was perhaps 300 feet above 

 the sea, the climate when we were there, which was in March, was 

 much like that of the English summer and was cool compared to 

 that which we subsequently encountered at the sea-level station of 

 our Italian expedition Pisa. 



The work performed at Orotava consisted in getting a base line, 

 so to speak, for our subsequent observations. The two persons 

 studied most completely were Mr C. G. Douglas, Fellow of St John's 

 College, Oxford, and myself. 



162 



