March 9, 1905J 



NA TURE 



44: 



which they were most conversant. The Senate 

 favoured the scheme, and Sir Walter Palmer, by a 

 timely gift of 2000/., rendered available the space 

 which the Senate had assigned for the laboratory. 

 The University supported the scheme with a grant 

 of 500L, and has since provided an annual grant of 

 400/. for five years, conditional upon the acquisition 

 of 600/. per annum from other sources. Upon this 

 annual subsidy of 1000?., it is estimated that the 

 present activity of the laboratory can be sustained. 

 So far the support obtained from outside sources, the 

 3000!. required for the five years, 1904-1909, is 

 represented by 2000L subscribed by Mr. G. W. Palmer 

 and Mr. A. Palmer. The sum asked for has there- 

 fore not yet been collected; when collected, it should 

 be noted, it will not serve to maintain the laboratorv 

 upon a 'scale commensurate with its activit\' and 

 promise. Thus the estimated expenditure of loooi. 

 per annum includes no provision for the honoraria 

 of lecturers, or for additional assistants, or for 

 research scholarships. The sum of 50,000/., it is 

 estimated, would suffice for the accomplishment of 

 this greater object. 



TH£ MONTE ROSA AND COL D'OLEN 

 INTERNATIONAL LABORATORIES. 



OOME time ago (N.wure, April 17, 1902, vol. Ixv. 

 »-^ p. 568) I directed the attention of the readers of 

 N.ATURE to the international laboratorv, the Capanna 

 Regina Margherita, which had been established on 

 the Gnifetti peak of Monte Rosa by Prof. Mosso, 

 of Turin, through the generous aid of the Regina 

 Madre of Italy. Already much valuable work has 

 been done in that laboratory, and if this has been 

 chiefly of a physiological kind, though provision 

 is made in the laboratory for physical and meteor- 

 ological as well as other investigations, the reason is 

 to be sought partly in the fact that Prof. Mosso is 

 a physiologist, partly in the special interest attaching 

 to the physiological problems presented by living 

 beings at high altitudes. 



In August and September, 1903, two physiological 

 expeditions were carried out at the Capanna Regina 

 Margherita, one under the direction of Prof. Zuntz, 

 of Berlin, the other by Prof. Mosso, several observers 

 taking part in each. The records of some of (not of 

 all) the results obtained in these two e.xpeditions are 

 now brought together by Prof. Mosso in a volume ' 

 of some 300 pages, elegantly bound in such a wav 

 as to be easily itself carried to high altitudes, and 

 appropriately dedicated to that Maecenas of science 

 M. Ernest Solvay, who has so freely given back to 

 science of the good things which science has given 

 to him. 



I do not propose, in this notice, to deal in detail 

 with the twenty-one memoirs which make up the 

 volume. One, that by Durig and Zuntz, is given in 

 German; all the others, though written bv Italian 

 observers, with that generous abnegation of their own 

 tongue which it is to be hoped will not be considered 

 necessary for them in the coming years, appear in 

 French. I may here perhaps be allowed to express 

 my regret that no memoir by any English observer, 

 either in his own or any other language, is to be 

 found among them. All of them treat, more or less 

 directly, with one or other of the many problems of 

 metabolism which are presented by life at such a high 

 altitude as 4560 metres. At that height the responses 

 which internal chemical, metabolic, processes and the 

 expenditure of energy make to changes in the en- 



1 Laboratoire Scientifique Internatinral du Monte Rosa. Travaux de 

 Tannic 1903. Publics par A. Mosso. (Turin : Loescher, 1904.) 



NO. 1845, '^'OL. 71] 



vironment are so different from those w-hich take place 

 at lower levels as to raise great hopes that persistent 

 researches in such Alpine laboratories may carry us 

 far towards solving the intricate problems of the 

 relation of chemical and physical changes of living 

 substance to the energies of life. It may be added 

 that such researches may be expected to explain, and 

 so to afford practical guidance as to, the beneficial 

 sanitary effects of life at high altitudes on many 

 diseases. 



Most of the memoirs, as might be expected, record 

 studies on the respiratory exchange and on the con- 

 dition of the blood at the high altitude as compared 

 with what is found at an ordinary low level ; and in 

 some of them the effects of artificially lowering baro- 

 metric pressure at Turin are compared with the effects 

 of the natural low pressure on Monte Rosa, accom- 

 panied as the latter is with other conditions. All 

 these are of great interest to the physiologist, and to 

 him chieflv; but one memoir may perhaps attract the 

 attention of the general reader, and that is the one 

 by Mosso and Galeotti on the physiological effects of 

 alcohol at high altitudes. These observers found that 

 a dose of alcohol, 40 c.c. of absolute alcohol 

 adequately diluted, which at Turin brought about a 

 condition' bordering on drunkenness produced, on 

 Monte Rosa, so far as subjective sensations were con- 

 cerned, hardlv anv effect at all. I may add that the 

 present volume does not record all the observations 

 made in the expeditions of 1903, a second volume 

 being about to appear shortly. Nor are physiological 

 researches the onlv ones which have been carried out ; 

 important meteorological and physical inquiries have 

 also been conducted. 



In spite of everv effort to make the accommodation 

 at the Gnifetti laboratory as complete as possible m 

 the circumstances, those circumstances oft'er many 

 obstacles to continued successful observations. The 

 period during which studv is possible is short, and 

 the hardships of living and working at such a high 

 altitude are such as cannot easily be borne by many 

 persons otherwise capable of carrying out fruitful m- 

 vestigations. Hence Prof. Mosso conceived the idea 

 of establishing in connection with the Gnifetti labor- 

 atorv a supplementary laboratorv at a lower but 

 still' high level, where work could be carried on in 

 connection with the higher laboratory, but under 

 easier conditions, and for a longer period of the year. 



Visitors to the southern slopes of the Monte Rosa 

 group probablv know well the little wooden inn at 

 the Col d'Olen at the height of about 3000 metres, 

 reached bv a long but easv walk or mule ride from 

 Alagna, and most admirabiv kept by the well known 

 enterprising hotel proprietors Guglielmina. From it 

 one mav, when the air is clear, see afar off the Duomo 

 of Milan, while at one's feet alongside the path to 

 Gressonav lies an .\lpine garden which Kew may 

 envy brilliant in late summer with sheets of gentian 

 and other lovelv flowers. Close by the inn. Prof. 

 Mosso has secured a plot of ground on which he is 

 building the new laboratorv; this he hopes to have 

 finished next autumn, but it will not be ready for 

 actual use until the summer of 1906. 



It is to be a laboratorv fully equipped for researches 

 in phvsiologv, meteorologv, jshvsics, and botany; but 

 in addition 'to this it will have sixteen comfortable 

 bedrooms, so that sixteen workers carrying on investi- 

 gations will have each a bedroom to himself; and if 

 the number of observers should happen at any time 

 to exceed sixteen, accommodation can be obtained at 

 the inn close bv. .^t such altitudes success in investi- 

 gation is largelv dependent on personal comfort, in- 

 cluding suitable' food; and probably there are not a 



