33G Dr. Marcet on the Temperature of the Human Body at 



I cannot help thinking that mountain-sickness is due to 

 want of power in the body of recovering the heat it loses under 

 those physiological circumstances to which it is subjected on 

 mountains. At a certain height the body is altogether placed 

 under cooling circumstances, such as cold weather and frequently 

 insufficient clothing; at night there is often a deficiency of 

 bed-clothes; and as a climber must be an early riser, he com- 

 mences his day's work (after a cold night) precisely at the pe- 

 riod in the twenty-four hours when, under ordinary circum- 

 stances, his body is coldest ; food has often to be taken cold ; 

 and to this may be added the cooling process from muscular 

 exertion in the act of climbing. In order to resist this cooling 

 action, the vital energy ought to be proportionally high ; it is 

 so in many cases, but not always, either from exhaustion, or from 

 a deficient supply of food, or from want of appetite to take 

 it — insufficient food not only contributing to reduce the vital 

 energy, but also depriving the body of the material on which 

 this energy has to act in order to make heat. 



The result of my experience is that the circumstances which are 

 known to be productive of animal heat are those best calculated 

 to cure mountain-sickness. 



These may be considered — as, first, going down- instead of up- 

 hill, which is known by many sufferers to cure the sickness. On 

 going down hill there is little or no muscular exertion, and con- 

 sequently, it may be anticipated, no great expenditure of animal 

 heat. 



I suffered last year from mountain-sickness on Mont Blanc 

 from the " grand plateau" to the top of the Mur de la Cote, 

 but felt immediately relieved on going down, and was quite well 

 shortly afterwards. On that occasion every circumstance under 

 which I happened to be, combined to lower my temperature : I 

 had started from the Cabane des Grands Mulets having taken 

 little or no food ; an intensely cold wind, many degrees below 

 the freezing-point, was driving clouds of frozen snow into the 

 face ; hands and feet were benumbed ; and I had gone up by 

 the corridor, where the w r ell-known want of air must have assisted 

 in lowering every vital phenomenon. 



Next, a violent attack of vomiting is often followed by imme- 

 diate return of health. At first I could not possibly understand the 

 reason of this remarkable fact, nothing being brought up from 

 the stomach, which was invariably empty, showing that the 

 sickness could not be due to indigestion ; but on considering 

 this circumstance I have come to the conclusion that, by increa- 

 sing considerably the rate of the circulation, the retching caused 

 a rising of the heat of the body. 



