Tributes 



determined, it was found to be insufficient to account for the behaviour 

 of the oxyhaemoglobin dissociation curve at that altitude. To explain 

 this the assumption had to be made either that some other abnormal 

 acid was present in the blood or that some new adjustment of the usual 

 acid and basic radicals had been brought about by the kidneys. 



While Barcroft and his colleagues were working on Monte Rosa 

 another expedition under the leadership of Haldane, of which I was a 

 member, was also studying acclimatization to high altitudes on Pike's 

 Peak, U.S.A. While we were able in a few experiments to corroborate 

 Barcroft's main conclusions in the Teneriffe expedition about the oxy- 

 haemoglobin dissociation curve, we, too, found ourselves in difficulty 

 in explaining the behaviour of the respiration in terms of the current 

 theory based on excess lactic acid production. 



In both instances it was not the facts which were wrong but the 

 interpretation which was faulty. The analysis of the lactic acid con- 

 centration in the blood in the Monte Rosa expedition proved con- 

 clusively that the original idea about an acidosis due solely to lactic 

 acid could no longer be maintained, and paved the way for a more 

 rational explanation which was to be suggested after the end of the 

 First World War. 



Although the full report of the Monte Rosa expedition was not pub- 

 lished until 1914, this did not check Barcroft's active research on other 

 lines, and a succession of papers continued to appear on the gaseous 

 metabolism of different organs and on further aspects of the dissociation 

 of oxyhaemoglobin, as well as some studies in association with Lewis 

 and others on the possible influence of acidosis in clinical cases of 

 cardio-renal disease. In addition he published in 1914 the first edition 

 of his great book The Respiratory Function of the Blood in which he 

 reviewed the existing knowledge to which he had so signally contributed. 

 But the First World War had by now broken out and before long 

 Barcroft was to be summoned to undertake a very different type of 

 work. With the introduction of gas warfare by the Germans in 1915 

 various advisory committees were appointed to deal with the new 

 situation, and a little later on Barcroft was assisting these committees 

 by experimental work at Cambridge and at Porton, where a Govern- 

 ment Experimental Station was established early in 1916. In January 

 1917 he was requested to take up duties as physiologist at Porton, and 

 from that date until the end of the war he was resident at Porton and 

 in charge of the Physiological Laboratory there. In April 1917 he was 

 joined by Peters, who was brought back from France where he had 

 been serving with distinction, and later by Boycott, Shaw Dunn and 

 G. H. Hunt. Under Barcroft's inspired leadership this laboratory did 

 an immense amount of experimental work, much of it having a direct 



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