ABUSE OF THE SCAPHANDER IN THE SPONGE FISHERIES. 519 
but one nature, is protean in its manifestations. It affects mostly the spinal 
marrow and the brain, the most important life centers, but appears in the most 
varied forms, as hemorrhages, stomach troubles, articular rheumatism, com- 
plete or partial lameness, lameness of separate limbs, fainting, vertigo, vomiting, 
dumbness, deafness, madness, brain stroke, heart stroke, hemorrhages of the 
brain, gangrene, loss of the finger nails, and frequently death, which is relief 
to these unfortunates. It should also be observed that the offspring of these 
divers have a weak constitution, especially of the nervous system. It is only 
if the diver is slightly attacked by the disease and immediately discontinues 
his work and subjects himself to treatment that it is possible for him to regain 
his health. Otherwise he is doomed to die prematurely, or he limps through 
life on crutches, or spends long years in bed covered with wounds. If the air- 
supply tube of the apparatus is punctured the unfortunate diver is immediately 
squeezed to death by the pressure of the terrible mass of water, which had 
received until that moment the necessary counter pressure from the air labo- 
riously pumped down. His head grows black and swells so that it can not be 
pulled out of the metal helmet. It must, consequently, be detached from the 
body and cut to pieces before being removed. The body is lowered to the 
bottom of the sea in a sack weighted with stones, or it is buried on the coast. 
Soon after another diver assumes the helmet which but shortly was covered with 
the blood of his comrade, and goes to meet the same danger, like a gladiator 
of ancient Rome. 
Since the dreadful consequences of the abuse of the diving apparatus are 
so evident, it is astounding that this business has spread and lasted so long, 
and in spite of the protests of the population and of individual philanthropists. 
Five conditions, however, explain partly the extraordinary duration of so 
great an evil: (1) The abuse is practiced on the high seas and concerns poor 
fishermen of distant, isolated localities, from which, moreover, they are absent 
the greater part of the year. (2) The evil is not confined to one country, 
but appears in all the sponge-bearing countries of the Mediterranean Sea and 
some of the Gulf of Mexico; the sponge fishermen do not live in compact settle- 
ments but dispersed on islands, peninsulas, and coastal strips of these two 
great basins. Thus the question is an international one. (3) The owners 
and partisans of diving apparatus endeavor to influence the governments, 
the press, and public opinion by such means as concealing the terrible conse- 
quences of this abuse or by excusing them. (4) There is a lack of official 
or private statistics on the mortality and diseases of divers using the diving 
apparatus and on the harm done by the apparatus to the sponges in respect 
to their reproduction. (5) There is a lack of responsibility on the part of 
harbor masters or captains for the death or illness of a diver; nor is there in 
