I. — PHYSIOLOGY. 157 



cent, saturat-ed ; that is to say, that few.' every hundred grams of 

 haemoglobin in the blood 82 were oxyhsemoglobin and 18 reduced 

 haemoglobin ; had this degree of acclimatisation not taken place his blood 

 would have contained as many as 38 parts of unoxidised haemoglobin 

 out of every hundred, and this would probably have made all the differ- 

 ence between the machine stopping and going on. 



The body, then, had fought the anoxaemia and reduced it very much 

 in degree, but at the same time the anoxaemia had, in a subtle way, 

 done much to stop the powers of the body, for this very acclimatisation 

 is effected at the expense of the ultimate reserve which the body has 

 at its disposal for the purpose of cariying out muscular or other work. 

 The oxygen in tlie lungs was obtained essentially by breathing at rest 

 as you would normally do when taking some exercise. Clearly, then, if 

 you are partly out of breath before you commence exercise you cannot 

 undertake so much as you otherwise would do. As a friend of mine, 

 who has, I believe, camped at a higher altitude than any other man, 

 put it to me, ' So great was the effort that we thought twice before we 

 turned over in bed. ' 



One of the interesting pix>blems with regard to chronic anoxaemia 

 is its effect upon the mind. Working from the more acute type of 

 anoxaemia to the more chronic, the following quotation will give an 

 account of the condition of a person in the acute stage. It is Sir 

 Clement Le Neve Foster's account of himself during CO poisoning, and 

 shows loss of memory, some degree of intelligence, and a tendency to 

 repeat what is said : 



How soon I realised that we were in what is commonly called ' a tight place ' 

 1 cannot say, but eventually, from long force of habit, I presume, I took out 

 my note-book. At what o'clock I first began to -write I do not know, for 

 the few words written on the first page have no hour put to them. They were 

 simply a few words of good-bye to my family, badly scribbled. The next page 

 is headed ' 2 p.m.,' aiid I perfectly well recollect taking out my watch from 

 time to time. As a rule I do not take a watch underground, but I carried 

 it on this occasion in order to be sure that I left the rat long enough when 

 testing with it. In fact, my note on the day of our misadventure was 

 ' 5th ladder. Bat two minutes at man,' meaning by the side of the corpse. 

 My notes at 2 p.m. were as follows : '2 p.m., good-bye, we are all dying, your 

 Clement, I feel we are dying, good-bye, all my darlings all, no help coming, good- 

 bye we are dying, good-bye, good-bye we are dying, no help comes, good-bye, 

 good-bye.' Then later, partly scribbled over some 'good-byes' I find, 'We 

 saw a body at/ 1.30 and then all became affected by the bad air, we have got to the 

 115 and can get no further, the box does not come in spite of our ringing for help. 

 It does not come, does not come — I wish the box would come. Captain R. is 

 shoutJH'g. my legs are bad, and I feel very i, my knees are i.' The so-called 

 ' ringing ' was signalling to the surface by striking the air-pipe with a hammer 

 or bar of iron. We had agreed upon signals before we went down. There is 

 TiTiting over other writing, as if I did not see exactly where I placed my 

 pencil, and then : ' I feel as if I were dreaming, no real pain, good-bye, 

 good-bye, I feel as if I were sleeping.' ' 2.15 we are all done. No i. or 

 scarcely any, we are done, we are done, godo-bye my darlings.' Here it is 

 rather interesting to note the ' godo ' instead of ' good.' Before very long the 

 fresh men who had climbed down to re<!cue us seemed to have arrived, and 

 explained that the ' box ' was caught in the shaft. Judging by my notes I did 

 not realise thoroughly that we should be rescued. Among them occur the words 

 'No pain, it is merely like a diream, no pain.' I frequently wrote the same 

 sentence over and over again. My last note on reaching the surface tells of 



* in the above quotation indicates an illegible word in the notes. 



