Diving Bells and Suits 377 



As soon as the second begins, the contrary takes place. The work- 

 man loses appetite, and, more and more, reaches his work as he leaves 

 it, melancholy and tired. His skin becomes flabby, loses color, be- 

 comes almost clay-colored. The conjunctiva takes on a wine-colored 

 hue. His gaze is dull. His face and body grow thin. Indecision, dis- 

 taste for movement, stupor almost, appear in all his motions, and 

 gradually the time comes when, outside the caisson, he seems to have 

 lost strength; when the normal atmosphere is no longer sufficient to 

 aerate his blood. 



In the compressed air, all these painful symptoms disappear; 

 unfortunately they reappear as soon as he goes out, and more and 

 more quickly too. Soon even the excess pressure fails to revive him. 

 He is then on the point of being able to regain the strength he loses, 

 every time he works, only by the intervention of morbid phenomena. 

 (P. 18.) 



So much for the purely physiological phenomena. As for the 

 symptoms, the fleas, or excruciating itching of the skin, hardly 

 ever begin to appear before the pressure of 2.5 atmospheres; be- 

 yond 3 atmospheres, "everyone has them;" the muscular swellings 

 (sheep) are frequent at about 3 atmospheres, as are the "synovial 

 swellings;" but the joints themselves are attacked only later and 

 more rarely. The muscle symptoms affect particularly those which 

 have been tired by repeated contractions. 



The number of days during which the laborers have worked 

 in the caissons seems to M. Foley a very important consideration; 

 under an almost equal pressure, the symptoms would become more 

 and more frequent and severe the longer one worked. 



No fatal ending or paralysis, however, has been observed at 

 Argenteuil. The most serious symptoms are muscular pains, which, 

 judging by the details of the observations, seem to have been of 

 extreme violence. 



M. Foley disagrees with all the other authors on two main 

 points, which are of the highest practical importance. According 

 to him, in the first place, when the workmen prolong their stay in 

 the caissons beyond 12 hours, they come out without harm: that 

 results, he says, from the fact that "the nervososanguine reaction 

 is general" (p. 49) ; but this so-called explanation is of little im- 

 portance. 



In the second place, curiously enough, he considers that the 

 speed of the decompression is of little importance. One minute per 

 atmosphere of compression seems to him long enough: 



For pressures above 3V2 atmospheres (decompression in 2 min- 

 utes 30 seconds), would it be necessary to follow the same progres- 

 sion? I do not think so; two and a half minutes are a long while in 

 an icy lock-chamber. (P. 56.) 



