248 



move them down and press with them against the sides of the breast, 

 repeating the process sixteen to twenty times a minute. 



This treatment should be continued for twenty to thirty minutes if 

 necessary, w^hile rubbing the patient vigorously with flannel or woolen 

 cloth, iu the direction from feet aud hands toward the body. 



Besides absence of respiration, cold and hunger may add to the 

 causes of asphyxia. In such cases, too, artificial respiration is first to be 

 supplied. The warming should be only gradual, never in a warm room, 

 or with heated bottles, but always by rubbing. 



When the body becomes warm the danger in nose, ears, hands and feet 

 of a surplus of blood or of impeded blood circulation is avoided by cold 

 compresses, by rubbing with snow, and elevating the alfected parts. 



As soon as respiration is restored small doses of coffee, tea, or brandy 

 should be given. 



MEASURES OF PROTECTION. 



The damage done by avalanches, besides the immediate one of de- 

 stroying life and property and devastating meadows aud agricultural 

 lands, lies in the tearing up of tracks in the ground in the shape or 

 rills and furrows, which may become the beginnings of dangerous tor- 

 rents and land-slides. 



Those slides which fall into wild mountain gulches do damage by 

 tearing down the decomposed rock and stones, which high water may 

 carry to the valley and over fertile fields. 



Measures of protection against avalanches and snow-slides have been . 

 applied, of course, by the dwellers of the mountains since their occu- 

 X)ancy began. These consisted, where the ground permitted, in placing 

 the buildings into the mountain side, when the avalanche would shoot 

 over the building, or b}^ building safety places, where to retreat in case 

 of danger. Probably, when by deforestation the danger from ava- 

 lanches had increased, a protecting wall or a stone or dirt heap was 

 erected, close above the houses which were to be protected, with an 

 acute angle towards the mountain top and with walls entering to right 

 and left ; such protective walls sometimes included a number of houses. 



On the mountain roads galleries were built, either cut into the living 

 rock, or with stone or timber, over which the snow masses would slide. 



These measures were intended to prevent the damage from avalanches 

 and slides, but to prevent their origin and their start measures were also 

 adopted early in this century. Such measures were the making of 

 ditches in horizontal lines, to prevent the snow from sliding, or of ter- 

 races, and the proper preservation of the forest growth. 



But only since 1867 has a sj^stematic treatment of the avalanches 

 been begun under technical direction. Since tlien, up to the year 188J, 

 thirty-four tracks of avalanches or snow-slides have been systematically 

 secured with perfect success. 



In undertaking such work, it is first necessar3^ to establish from tes- 

 timony the uppermost point from wbich the avalance has been ol)served 



