46 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1437 



Bareroft, F.R.S., reader in physiology at the 

 University of Cambridge, provided some de- 

 tails of the recent expedition to Peru, to study 

 physiological effects at high altitudes, supple- 

 menting the account he gave to the Chelsea 

 Clinical Society as reported in our columns on 

 April 22 (p. 648). The observations were car- 

 ried out in the mining town of Cerro de Pasco, 

 which is situated in the Andes, at a height of 

 about 14,000 feet. Mr. Bareroft noted in pass- 

 ing the curious fact that at 12,000 feet there 

 were cows which gave milk, and at 13,000 feet 

 cows which gave little or no milk; this was not 

 a question of fodder, because fodder was 

 brought to the animals, and still they gave no 

 milk. At 15,000 feet there were neither cows 

 nor milk. Another point of interest was that 

 fleas disappeared at 11,000 feet, though the 

 louse accompanied man to a higher region. 

 The Andes were chosen for this expedition for 

 two reasons. The less important was that, un- 

 like the heights on Teneriffe, to which the lec- 

 turer had previously gone as a member of an 

 expedition, water was obtainable, by means of 

 a water tower on the railway, right up to the 

 level at which the work was done, and water, 

 of course, was the first essential of the labora- 

 tory. The second reason was that in this ease, 

 instead of a mountain solitude, there was a 

 community which had been acclimatized for 

 generations to life at these levels. The people 

 in this region were interesting ethnologically : 

 they might loosely be called Indians, and their 

 civilization, such as it was, probably dated back 

 to before the days of the Incas. Many of them 

 lived in chimneyless and windowless houses; 

 they had a purely communal system of govern- 

 ment, and some of their customs would hardly 

 appeal to more civilized races. When a native 

 was very ill, for instance, the date of his funeral 

 was fixed without reference to his convenience, 

 and an official saw to it that he was ready to 

 keep the appointment! It was remarkable 

 what loads the people were able to carry at 

 these altitudes. A boy of about 13 woidd carry 

 from the interior of a mine a burden of 40 

 pounds, ascending a staircase with it from a 

 point 250 feet below, while a full-gi'own man 

 would carry a hundred pounds of metal ! yet the 

 European was out of breath if he carried his 



coat up a slight incline. Even the native, how- 

 ever, only accomplishes the work with great 

 panting and with many intervals for rest. 

 X-raj' photographs of the chests of some of 

 the natives showed that the ribs started almost 

 horizontally and went round the chest like the 

 hoops of a barrel. According to tables of chest 

 measurements in relation to the length of the 

 spine, the natives in this region should have a 

 chest measurement of less than 80 em, whereas 

 their usual chest measurement was 90 cm. The 

 native who was 5 feet 2 inches in height had a 

 chest which should belong to a man of 5 feet 

 11 inches. Mr. Bareroft dealt also with blood 

 changes. The immediate effect of the ascent 

 was greatly to increase the number of red blood 

 corpuscles, and although this excess was some- 

 what reduced later, the blood of members of 

 the expedition showed throughout a larger pro- 

 portion of young blood cells than normal. Com- 

 parative X-ray photographs showed also that 

 the heart tended distinctly to become smaller. 

 Mr. Bareroft closed by appealing for the estab- 

 lishment of some institute and laboratory which 

 should continue permanently the study of the 

 physiological effects at high altitudes. — British 

 Medical Journal. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



BOOKS ON NATURAL AND UNNATURAL 



HISTORY 



How and Why Stories: John C. Brannee. 



Heni-y Holt & Co., New York. 

 Interesting Neighbors: Oliver P. Jenkins. 



P. Blakiston's Son & Co., Philadelphia. 

 The Earth and Its Life: A. Waddingham 



Seers. World Book Compan5', Tonkers-on- 



Hudson, New York. 



I find on my desk three little books of nat- 

 ural and unnatural history, as different as pos- 

 sible, one from another, but each wholly admir- 

 able of its kind. Branner's How and Why 

 Stories represent the efforts of wise old negroes 

 on his father's plantation in East Tennessee to 

 account for the ways of common animals as 

 seen against a Biblical background. The vari- 

 ous tales are as racy and quite as remarkable 

 as the Georgia adventures of Brer Rabbit as 

 related by Joel Chandler Harris. In them. 



