324 Historical 



numerous as they are less convincing) of real acclimatization, in 

 lofty regions, of successive generations tending towards the 

 formation of a race. 



With certain reservations, for it seems to be proved that certain 

 persons cannot become accustomed to sojourn in lofty places, we 

 simply state that a traveller who has been in the mountains for 

 some time will feel no unusual sensations at a level where at first 

 he was ill; that his descendants, if he founds a family there, will 

 preserve his relative immunity; that the race thus formed will 

 enjoy the same advantages, so that the traveller who is a new- 

 comer will be surprised. But with the reservation already made 

 that there is nothing absolute in this. 



We must also have an understanding in the matter of habit. 

 Indeed, as we shall say in a moment, fatigue plays a great part in 

 the intensity of mountain sickness. One of the consequences of 

 prolonged exercise in the mountains is a lessened tendency to 

 fatigue. The same thing is true of this special gymnastics as of all 

 others; one finally contracts only the muscles, only the muscular 

 bundles indispensable for the movement one seeks to make; one 

 brings them only to the degree of contraction which is precisely 

 necessary; in a word, one reduces the expenditure of energy to a 

 minimum. Moreover, the muscles, and no doubt the nerves also, 

 more frequently stimulated to action, from which a more active 

 local circulation constantly removes the wastes, can suffice for a 

 greater dynamic storage and expenditure, become, as we say, 

 stronger, and, for the same work, give the sensation of fatigue in 

 a much lessened degree. 



And therefore one fits himself for acclimatization on the heights 

 by the simple gymnastic exercise of moderate ascents, with which 

 the professional "Alpinists" always take care to preface their 

 feats of lofty altitudes. For failure to comply with this rule, the 

 most energetic often pay a forfeit. One of the members of the 

 Austrian Alpine Club, very familiar with the lofty summits of 

 the Alps, who boasted to me that he had felt no symptoms on 

 Monte Rosa or Mont Blanc, confessed that he had been very ill 

 one day because he had made an ascent of 2500 meters, coming 

 from a sedentary life with no transition. That is one of the reasons 

 why the moderate mountains of the valley of Chamounix, Buet 

 and sometimes even Brevent (2525 meters) , cause illness in trav- 

 ellers coming from Geneva; it is also this lack of training which 

 explains the frequency of the symptoms of mountain sickness in 

 the ascent of Mont Blanc, when that of Monte Rosa is much less 

 feared in this regard; it is because the former ascent is often made 



