1004 Summary and Conclusions 



We see that very probably, in the habitual conditions of our life, 

 we commit excesses of oxygenation as well as of nourishment, two 

 kinds of excess, which are correlative. And just as peasants, who 

 eat much less than we do, by utilizing all that they absorb, produce 

 in heat and work a useful result equal, if not superior, to that of 

 city dwellers; just as a Basque mountaineer furnished with a piece 

 of bread and a few onions makes expeditions which require of the 

 member of the Alpine Club who accompanies him the absorption 

 of a pound of meat, so it may be that the dwellers in high places 

 finally lessen the consumption of oxygen in their organism, while 

 keeping at their disposal the same quantity of vital force, either 

 for the equilibrium of temperature, or the production of work. 

 Thus we could explain the acclimatization of individuals, of genera- 

 tions, of races. 



But we should consider not only the acts of nutrition, but also 

 the stimulation, perhaps less, which an insufficiently oxygenated 

 blood causes in the muscles, the nerves, and the nervous centers. 

 We have no measure of these factors, but it is probable that it is a 

 serious matter for these delicate organs, aside from questions of 

 oxidation, to receive an arterial blood containing 20 or only 16 

 volumes of oxygen, and we certainly may think that in the latter 

 condition, they will tend to be less active on the average. 



The consideration of the changes in the carbonic acid content of 

 the blood, which we have somewhat neglected up to now, should, 

 it seems, take us longer, now that we are dealing with a long 

 sojourn. In the cities of an altitude of about 4000 meters, to which 

 in imagination we have transported our traveller, the carbonic acid 

 will, have diminished by 6 to 7 volumes, assuming that 40 volumes 

 are the average at sea level. The blood and consequently the tissues 

 will therefore become quite alkaline, and this modification must 

 have consequences whose importance we guess, without being able 

 today to determine their nature. 



In fact, according to the observations of M. Jourdanet, the 

 dwellers in high places, even the native Europeans, are almost all 

 anemic, 30 in spite of the appearance of health. Diseases, whatever 

 they may be, especially those which attack the respiratory organs, 

 hamper the absorption of oxygen, and bring out this sort of latent 

 anemia, due, not to the lessening of the number of corpuscles, but 

 to the lessening of their oxygenation, an anoxemia, adopting the 

 happy expression of my learned colleague and friend. Blood- 

 letting, to which one might resort in memory of medical practice at 



