Theories and Experiments 251 



lofty plateaux of the New World would necessarily be reduced to very 

 small proportions; the animals which live permanently at the dairy 

 farm of Antisana, where the barometer stands at only 47 centimeters, 

 would absorb a weight of oxygen less than two-thirds as much as 

 they consume at sea level. Such a variation in so important a 

 function would certainly cause great changes in their mode of exist- 

 ence, which surely would not have escaped observation. If the 

 oxygenation of the blood in the pulmonary capillaries was a purely 

 physical fact, in birds of lofty flight which pass instantly from the 

 surface of the earth to the highest regions of the atmosphere, the 

 consumption of oxygen would undergo variations too sudden and too 

 extensive not to endanger seriously the lives of these animals. (P. 262.) 



Moreover, in 1868, in his third edition, Longet borrowed this last 

 objection from M. Gavarret, and added to the passage which I 

 quoted above the following remark: 



How can we admit that observers would not have been struck 

 by the profound changes which such variations would not fail to 

 produce in the mode of existence of these populations? 



After that, is it not strange to see that when M. Jourdanet, as 

 an "observer", noted "these variations in the mode of existence 

 of the populations of lofty places", his conclusions were rejected 

 by an exception drawn from the fact that by virtue of chemical 

 laws oxygen cannot be removed from the blood by decrease of 

 pressure? 



In 1858 there appeared the second edition of the book of M. 

 Lombard, 88 of which we have already spoken; in announcing it, 

 the editor of the Bibliothcque XJniverselle, Dr. Duval, 89 expresses 

 himself in these characteristic terms: 



The researches on mountain sickness have been completed and 

 better coordinated; perhaps the author made the possible symptoms 

 of the digestive functions at an altitude of 1300 to 2000 meters seem 

 a little too common. Many tourists will state that at that height they 

 feel neither lack of appetite, nor nausea, nor vomiting, but on the 

 contrary, an excellent and hearty appetite; some will also deny this 

 distaste for wine and alcoholic liquors which would be experienced 

 under the same circumstances; but that is only a question of a few 

 meters more or less, and the reality of the symptoms described is 

 none the less constant at an elevation which varies with the indi- 

 vidual. De Saussure, who did not begin to be perceptibly affected 

 until he had reached a height of 3800 meters, may pass as an 

 exception. 



As for M. Lombard, he thinks much less of the direct effect of 

 the diminished weight of the air; he also brings up the objection of 

 Payerne, but none the less he gives great importance to the les- 



