Summary and Discussion 349 



But here I shall merely show that no one replied to it, and that 

 consequently the theory of de Saussure, with the chemico-phys- 

 iological commentaries with which it has been enriched, is now 

 considerably damaged by it. If, even at 7000 meters, and without 

 taking into account the respiratory acceleration, much more oxy- 

 gen enters the lungs that is required by the organic combustions, 

 why should not the blood take what it needs and what it can find 

 there? 



And first, as a fact and not as a theory, is the blood really "less 

 thoroughly oxygenated," as Brachet said? It is interesting to note 

 that Hamel was the only one to suggest performing an experiment 

 to "extract, on the summit of Mont Blanc, the blood of some ani- 

 mal, and to see by its color whether it had been sufficiently de- 

 carbonized in the lungs" (page 223). Yet we must confess that 

 the purple tinge of the lips and the conjunctiva furnished some basis 

 for the statements of those who maintained that oxygenation 

 was incomplete: when one of Clark's guides had the nosebleed, 

 "his blood seemed darker than usual" (page 91). 



Theory of M. Jourdanet. Some authors had glimpsed, as an 

 explanation of this insufficiency of oxygenation, a cause other than 

 the one which we have just been discussing. It was not merely 

 the insufficient quantity of oxygen circulating in the lungs in a 

 given time which they blamed; but, to borrow the actual words of 

 Pravaz, "the lack of pressure which makes the solution of this gas 

 in the blood less abundant" (page 239). This idea was clearly 

 formulated only by Pravaz, in the passage which I have just 

 quoted: no one adopted it afterwards. M, Gavarret opposed it 

 energetically; the learned professor of the Faculte de Medecine 

 of Paris declared "that the absorption of oxygen by the venous 

 blood is not a purely physical fact, but that chemical forces play 

 an important part in this fixation" (page 250). Moreover, if it 

 were so, what would become of the people living at the dairy farm 

 of Antisana, where the barometer stands at 47 centimeters, who 

 would absorb "a weight of oxygen two thirds less than that con- 

 sumed at sea level"? And Longet said a little later: "If the law 

 of solutions applied, we should reach this conclusion, that the blood 

 of those living in regions where the atmospheric pressure is hardly 

 0.380 meters would contain only half as much oxygen as the blood 

 of those who live at sea level .... But, of course, the preceding 

 law does not have an application here" (page 250) . 



But the point here was to find out what did happen to these 

 dwellers in lofty places, and the reasoning of the learned profes- 

 sors was a real vicious circle. Fortunately for them, the notable 



