394 Historical 



same season, out of 24 men who used 12 suits of English manufacture, 

 10 died. 



The lack of doctors at the fishing places and the difficulty of get- 

 ting information from the fishermen of the Archipelago, who are of 

 a very distrustful nature, did not allow us to determine, as would 

 have been desirable, the nature of the symptoms which preceded the 

 death of the 10 men we have just mentioned. We could learn only 

 that three of them died suddenly as they were leaving their subma- 

 rine work, and that others had languished from one to three months, 

 paralyzed in their lower limbs and bladders. Because of the existence 

 of paraplegia in the 7 divers who lived for a time, we may assume, 

 up to a certain point, that this symptom must also have been present 

 in the 3 who died rapidly. 



What are the injuries which caused the death of these unfortunate 

 fishermen during the cruise of 1867, and how can we explain the 

 mechanism of their production? The lack of medical observations 

 and especially of autopsies requires that we express an opinion on 

 this subject only with considerable reserve. Paraplegia, it is true, is 

 a symptom so characteristic and apparent that one does not need to 

 be a physician to observe it. In one of the victims, a very daring 

 young Greek diver, there was such a distention of the bladder that 

 the father, in the hope of relieving this unfortunate young man, 

 tried to catheterize him; he caused disturbances which were followed 

 by a peritonitis which was soon fatal. 



We shall see in Chapter III the explanation which M. Leroy de 

 Mericourt suggests for these symptoms, which he attributes to 

 medullary hemorrhages. 



The rest of the note is devoted to very accurate remarks about 

 the superiority of the Denayrouze apparatus and the necessity of a 

 slow decompression: 



Whereas the group of divers among whom the symptoms appeared 

 reached the considerable depths of 45 to 54 meters and consequently 

 endured pressures varying from 5V2 to 6.4 atmospheres, M. Denay- 

 rouse with a prudence which does him honor, had given the order not 

 to go beyond 35 meters, not to stay more than 2V2 hours, per diver 

 and per day, and finally to come up very slowly, taking one mmute 

 for each meter of depth. Moreover, the apparatus used offers greater 

 safety than the diving suit: the air is given out in proportion to the 

 needs of respiration, and at a pressure mathematically equal to that 

 of the ambient medium. 



But it was not possible to make the Greeks observe these strict 

 precautions. The decompression to which M. Denayouze had as- 

 signed a duration of 15 minutes began to be made in one or two 

 minutes again. The symptoms reappeared also. A private letter 

 from M. Denayrouze, dated July 9, 1872, gives me the following 

 information on this point: 



