92 Historical 



he mounted, he was more exhausted, the oppression increased, a 

 violent headache appeared, as did strong 'palpitations, general lassi- 

 tude, and a pain in the knee and the muscles of the thigh, which 

 made movement of the legs difficult. About the elevation of 4,570 

 meters, he had a strong desire to sleep, and was completely exhausted, 

 down-hearted, and discouraged; his guides had to force him to leave 

 the rocks of the Petits-Mulets. The rest of the ascent was extremely 

 painful for him; they had to hoist him by a rope along the last grade. 

 As soon as he had begun to feel ill effects, neither he nor his guides, 

 took more than fifteen or twenty consecutive steps. While climbing 

 the last hundred meters, the most robust and daring guide, he says, 

 was exhausted after three or four steps, and forced to stop to get his 

 breath. He suffered much from the cold on the side where the sun did 

 not strike. Finally, after climbing the last twenty meters with a little 

 less discomfort, he reached the crest, where he fell deeply asleep 

 immediately. He was awakened after a quarter of an hour; he was 

 better, the headache and the pain in the legs had stopped, but he was 

 shivering and thirsty;., his pulse was frequent, his breathing difficult, 

 although the oppression had lessened. He could not eat; the sight 

 and the smell of food nauseated him .... (P. 20.) 



Mountain excursions became numerous; it was not only Mont 

 Blanc that the travellers, who had become "tourists", aimed at. 



A German Swiss, Meyer, 128 who published the account of his 

 excursions in 1812, gave his attention to physiological symptoms; 

 he found that they had been greatly exaggerated: 



All that De Saussure reports on the effects of the atmosphere in 

 lofty elevations upon the animal organism has no general foundation; 

 there are still a great many things which are hypothetical. For 

 instance, at an absolute elevation of 10,000 to 12,000 feet and more 

 above sea level, not one of us was drowsy or in a feverish state, or 

 vomited or fainted, symptoms about which some travellers who 

 reached very lofty summits have said a great deal .... 



Who could deny that when one is climbing, the pulse rate becomes 

 almost immediately twice as frequent as it was before? If one walks 

 then at a slow pace long enough to recover, the pulse will quickly 

 return to the same rate as on the plain or in the valleys .... I had 

 the opportunity to note that the fainting of one of our guides near the 

 summit of the Jungfrau had been brought on largely by the great 

 efforts he made in ascending, and partly also by the fear inspired in 

 him by the danger he was running. None of us felt anything of the 

 sort when we were descending. (P. 30.) 



Let us note the fainting of the guide, whatever the expla- 

 nation given may be. Let us add that at lower elevations than those 

 reached by Meyer, Dr. Parrot, a celebrated mountaineer, expe- 

 rienced a strange symptom which he attributes, it is true, to the 

 heat, but in which the decrease of pressure seems to me to play 



