296 Historical 



These ideas are far more definite and certain than those of 

 Captain Burton 137 about the origin of mountain sickness: 



Some tried to explain our immunity to mountain sickness or the 

 puna on the Grand-Pic, by the existence of a wind blowing violently 

 and steadily from the east, which brought to our lungs the quantity of 

 oxygen necessary for their consumption. I think, however, that this 

 sickness must be, like seasickness, a disorder of the liver or the stom- 

 ach, often aggravated by stimulants and by violent and sudden exer- 

 cise. (Vol. II, p. 121.) 



The celebrated African traveller quotes seriously in this con- 

 nection a passage from a work which I could not procure, which 

 contains, I think, one of the most comical ideas ever expressed on 

 this difficult subject: 



According to Dr. J. Hunt (Acclimatisation of Man) Europeans 

 cannot live long at a great elevation in the northern hemisphere; the 

 natives of the south can .... "This difference between the north and 

 the south hemisphere, he says, is caused by the difference of the attrac- 

 tion to the North Pole. In the northern hemisphere the ascent of a 

 high mountain causes a rush of blood to the head; in the southern, it 

 is attracted to the feet: and hence the cause of the discomforts ex- 

 perienced in the ascent of a mountain in the first hemisphere." 



I shall end this long series of quotations by reporting almost 

 entirely two very interesting accounts, which we owe to the pens 

 of very distinguished physicians, and in which there is a discus- 

 sion of the effects of altitudes insufficient to produce mountain 

 sickness, but sufficient to cause physiological changes which have 

 proved useful to therapeutics. 



The first is by Dr. Jaccoud, 138 and is devoted to the study, from 

 the medical standpoint, of the spa of Saint Moritz, in the Upper 

 Engadine. 



The greatest variations of the barometer at the baths are in- 

 cluded between 599 and 627 millimeters. The altitude of the vil- 

 lage of Saint Moritz is 1855 meters above sea level. On the vast 

 plateau of the Engadine the climate is much more clement than 

 at corresponding elevations in the rest of Switzerland. 



In the adult who is in good health, the first effects of altitude are 

 shown by an increase of appetite noticeable the first day, which keeps 

 equal with a proportional increase of digestive and assimilative 

 power .... 



The parallel superactivity of the digestive functions and of metab- 

 olism is shown, on the one hand, by the ease and speed of digestion, 

 in spite of the increase of the ingesta; on the other hand, by changes 

 in proportion between the adipose tissue and the muscular tissue. . The 

 first decreases considerably as a result of a prolonged sojourn in the 



