Btimct progress. 



No. 14. April, 1895. Vol. III. 



MOUNTAIN SICKNESS. 



BASED ON NOTES BY MR. W. M. CONWAY OF HIS EX- 

 PERIENCES IN THE KARAKORAM HIMALAYAS. 



WHEN, in mountain climbing, a height of 16,000 to 

 17,000 feet is reached, the generality of people 

 experience, to a greater or less degree, a train of symptoms 

 to which the term mountain sickness (Fr. mal cies montagnes; 

 Ger. Bergkrankheit) is applied. These symptoms become 

 more and more distressing the more the above heights are 

 exceeded, without however varying in kind. They may 

 become so serious that the life of the individual is en- 

 dangered. There is still a good deal that is obscure about 

 the condition, therefore the observations made by Conway, 

 who with his party has climbed higher than any previous 

 traveller, and who seems a very good observer, are of 

 interest and importance. When he left England for his 

 expedition in the Karakoram district he took with him, at 

 Professor Clifford Allbutt's suggestion, a Dudgeon's sphyg- 

 mograph with which he obtained pulse curves at different 

 heights up to 23,000 feet from himself and other members 

 of his expedition. Some of these tracings were lost in trans- 

 mission to England, but enough remains to teach all that 

 we can expect to learn from such records. These curves 

 he has placed in my hands for examination, and I will 

 presently reproduce some of the more important of them 

 and draw such conclusions as they seem to allow of. 



On Conway's return to England I asked him to write 



