608 Professor Joseph Barcroft [June 9> 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 

 Friday, June 9, 1922. 



Sir James Crichton-Browne, J. P. M.D. LL.D. F.R.S., 



Treasurer and Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Joseph Barcroft, C.B.E. F.R.S. 

 Physiological Effects at High Altitudes in Peru. 



The recent expedition to Peru was initiated under the auspices of 

 the Royal Society. So far as the British members were concerned, 

 it was financed in part by a grant made by that body, in part by two 

 substantial private subscriptions from Sir Robert Hadfield, then on 

 the Council of the Royal Society, and Sir Peter Mackie, who has on 

 previous occasions been a staunch supporter of anthropological 

 research undertaken by the Royal Society. In part also its expenses 

 were met by grants from the Moray and Carnegie funds in Edinburgh. 

 These grants paid some of the expenses of the expedition as a whole, 

 together with the personal expenses of three of its members — namely,. 

 Dr. J. C. Meakins, professor of therapeutics in Edinburgh ; Mr. 

 J. H. Doggart, of King's College, Cambridge ; and myself. The 

 project was warmly supported by a number of institutions on the 

 American continent, each of which sent a member of the party at its- 

 own expense. Harvard Medical School was represented by Dr. Bock, 

 Dr. Forbes, and jointly with Toronto Medical School by Prof. 

 Redfield ; the Presbyterian Hospital, New York, by Dr. George 

 Harrop ; and the Rockefeller Institute by Dr. Carl Binger. The 

 American and British parties sailed from New York and Liverpool 

 respectively in the middle of November, the American section arriving 

 in Peru a fortnight or more before we did. 



I have perhaps given the impression that the party consisted of 

 two sections from different continents, sharply marked off from one 

 another, and neither of which had seen the other before. This 

 impression is erroneous, for the whole idea of the expedition grew 

 from the fertile soil of collaboration in the researches carried out 

 under a single roof. Dr. Redfield and Dr. Bock had been working' 

 in Cambridge (England) throughout the previous year, and Dr. 

 Harrop had been there for a short time. There the scheme had been 

 hatched, the methods standardised, and a number of the controls 

 carried out. 



Why did we go to Peru, or, more precisely, to Cerro de Pasco ? 

 The question may most easily be answered by comparing Peru with 



