Topical antibiotic treatment of wounds was found to be relatively successful. 

 Nevertheless, it is our opinion that a major contributing factor in the slow 

 healing of some wounds was the skin's remaining moist too much of the time, 

 a condition that could have been remedied if more careful attention had been 

 paid to thorough drying of the wounds once the aquanauts were out of the water, 

 and early thorough cleansing of cuts and scrapes with germicidal soap. It 

 would also have been helpful in the management of nonhealing lesions if the 

 psychology program had allowed for the watch physician to enter the habitat 

 and have a firsthand look at them. 



The otic solution recommended for use during the missions proved to be an 

 effective preventive for those who used it as instructed. Of the 53 subjects, 

 34 used the otic solution regularly, as directed; only 3, or 8.87o, developed 

 symptoms of otitis externa. Of the 17 subjects who elected not to use the 

 solution daily, 11, or 657o, developed otitis externa, whereas 6 of them remained 

 asymptomatic. (Two aquanauts did not qualify as users or nonusers, according 

 to our criteria.) The subject who lost two days in the water because of 

 external otitis had used the ear solution as directed. 



Difficulty in clearing the ears was a curiously common experience in the 

 TEKTITE II missions. Although there is no immediate explanation of the 

 frequency of its occurrence, 12 of the 53 aquanauts, or 237c., were thus 

 affected, including three cases of clinically significant ear "squeeze." 



Of 58 decompressions, there were 22 incidents (35%) of oxygen toxicity--that 

 is, pleuritic substernal chest pain. The pain was worse when the subjects 

 were breathing pure oxygen. 



Base-Camp Medical Experiences 



Injuries, infections, and illnesses : 



All injuries of any significance in TEKTITE II were sustained by support 

 personnel. The three injuries that were serious enough to cause loss of work 

 time were: severe lacerations and compound fractures of the hand of a student 

 (off duty); contusions of the thigh of another student, caused by a fall from 

 a motorcycle; disc damage suffered by a safety engineer, which necessitated 

 his transfer to the mainland for surgery. The other injuries sustained by 

 support personnel were minor, and many were related to the injudicious use of 

 motorbikes on the St. John terrain, which is hilly, rocky, and heavily thicketed. 



Oozing sap from indigenous plants, such as the manchineel tree and the mango 

 tree, caused mild to severe contact dermatitis in many personnel, sometimes 

 amounting to the equivalent of second-degree burns. Sea urchins, fire coral, 

 and jellyfish all caused the expected number of irritations and inflammatory 

 reactions among the support teams, as well as among the aquanauts themselves. 



Insect bites--primarily from mosquitoes and the ubiquitous sand flies-- 

 contributed their share of misery to those living and working on St. John. 

 It was not unusual for personnel to leave base camp looking as if their legs 

 had been peppered with birdshot. 



IX-12 



