Abstract
I HAVE just come back from a journey in the region of the Andes, and in looking over the numbers of NATURE, which had accumulated during my absence, I came across the extract, which you make in your notes of February 21, from the Revue Scientifique, on the subject of mountain sickness. I cannot agree with M. Kronecker's statement that beyond three thousand metres mountain sickness attacks all persons as soon as they indulge in the least muscular effort, as I made the acquaintance of many people, mostly railway men, living and working at altitudes of fourteen or fifteen thousand feet on the Oroya line and the Southern Railway of Peru, who had never experienced soroche, or mountain sickness. As far as my own experience goes, in three journeys across the Andes and several mountain ascents, including one to the top of the crater of the Misti, 19,300 feet above sea level, I had only one attack of soroche, and that was at the end of a ride on an oil engine from sea level to fourteen thousand feet in nine hours. But this was so complicated with suffocation by the oil fumes and scorching by the heat of the furnace while running through the fifty-seven tunnels on the line, that I cannot say how much was mountain sickness and how much was not. At any rate, I was perfectly well the next morning, and rode over a pass nearly seventeen thousand feet high without the slightest inconvenience. As regards the danger of a prolonged sojourn, my experience teaches me that it is almost entirely due to personal idiosyncrasy and unwise eating and drinking. A healthy person whose lungs and heart are all right, who does not over-eat and is very moderate in the use of stimulants, will not suffer from mountain sickness after the first few hours, and in many cases will not suffer at all if the ascent is sufficiently gradual. Of course very violent exertion produces distress by reason of the deficiency of oxygen. I do not think that there need be any difficulty about the officials of the proposed Jungfrau railway, if steady men, not of a full habit of body, are selected. I never heard of any trouble from mountain sickness among the Peruvian railway men unless they over-stimulated, and yet they are accustomed to go in a day from sea level to 15,764 feet on the Oroya line, and to 14,666 feet on the Southern line, and return to sea level on the following day. I may add that I have made both these journeys myself without the slightest inconvenience, and have been able to walk and ride without any trouble at the end of them.
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GRIFFITH, G. Mountain Sickness. Nature 52, 414 (1895). https://doi.org/10.1038/052414b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/052414b0
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