Paul Bert was chosen for the post since he had always supported 

 the French colonial policy, and he departed for the East in Febru- 

 ary, 1886. He was enormously active during his first five months at 

 Hanoi and did much to effect a complete reorganization of the Tong- 

 king government; but in November he became suddenly ill and died 

 of dysentery on November 11th, at the early age of fifty-three. 



Paul Bert's activities had turned to altitude physiology about 

 1869 as a result of his friendship with a Dr. Jourdanet who had be- 

 come interested in mountain sickness through personal experience 

 while travelling in Mexico. Jourdanet was a wealthy patron of the 

 arts and sciences, and he gave Bert the essential financial support 

 for altitude studies, making it possible for him to develop several 

 low-pressure chambers for man and animal. In the course of his 

 investigations, Bert had sponsored an ascent in a balloon, Zenith, 

 in which various determinations were to be made of the constitu- 

 tion of the upper air (April 15, 1875) . This ill-fated expedition was 

 undertaken by three balloon enthusiasts, MM. Sivel, Croce-Spinelli, 

 and the only survivor of the expedition, Gaston Tissandier. The ac- 

 count of the trip may be given in Tissandier 's words: 



"I now come to the fateful moments when we were overcome by the 

 terrible action of reduced pressure. At 22,900 feet . . . torpor had seized 

 me. I wrote nevertheless . . . though I have no clear recollection of writ- 

 ing. We are rising. Croce is panting. Sivel shuts his eyes. Croce also 

 shuts his eyes. ... At 24,600 feet the condition of torpor that overcomes 

 one is extraordinary. Body and mind become feebler. . . . There is no 

 suffering. On the contrary, one feels an inward joy. There is no thought 

 of the dangerous position; one rises and is glad to be rising. I soon felt 

 myself so weak that I could not even turn my head to look at my com- 

 panions. ... I wished to call out that we were now at 26,000 feet, but my 

 tongue was paralyzed. All at once I shut my eyes and fell down powerless 

 and lost all further memory." 



The fatalities on the Zenith were due, in some measure, to com- 

 petitive braggadocio, for the English balloonist, Glaisher, in 1862 

 had ascended to 24,000 feet and the Tissandier expedition wished to 

 outdo him. They had little notion of the dangers, nor were they 

 aware of the peril of the fixation of ideas that develops under low 

 oxygen tension. 



Paul Bert began to work actively on respiratory problems early 

 in the seventies, and in 1874 published a preliminary monograph of 

 167 pages entitled: Recherches expcrimentales sur Vinfluence que les 

 modifications dans la pression barometrique exercent sur les phcno- 

 mcnes de la vie. This is taken up in part with a description of his 

 admirably constructed low-pressure chamber. In 1878 he published 



VII 



