NEW KIND OF SICKNESS.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 98, 23 December 1904, Page 7

NEW KIND OF SICKNESS.

Malady Which Attacks Workmem la Compressed Air Chambers Underground. The Bucceßßful plea of a workman at the West Ham police court that his intoxication was due to the absorption of compressed air, and not to alcohol, was regarded by the uninitiated as more ingenious than truthful. But the Teracity of the workman was unimpeachable, says the London Daily Mail of a recent date. The construction of "tube" railways in London has introduced to the men who make them a disease of which they knew nothing before. It is called "caisson sickness," and is brought about by compressed air which is driven into the tunnels to enable the men to breathe. In some aapefltl the outward symptoms are not unlike those of alcoholic intoxication. The pain suffered is acute. The pressure of the unnatural air, which is frequently three times as dense as the ordinary atmosphere, or approximately 45 pounds to the square inch, occasionally breaks the drams of the workmen's ears. Paralysis, according to an authority, supervenes in severe cases, and several deaths have occurred. Maddning earache and toothache afflict the majority of the workmen, but the sickness almost invariably announces itself in the knee joints. So severe is the pain that strong men cry and groan. One sufferer has likened it to the sensation of "having the joints twisted off." While the recently completed Baker street and Waterloo railway tunnel was being made under the Thames 47 cases ot "caisson sickness" occurred among 120 men in six months, and that despite the unremitting care of a well-known physician who was in regular attendance. Th« doctor allowed no one to enter the tunnel whose heart was not thoroughly sonnd or who was addicted to the immoderate use of alcohol. At the end of each "shift" the men had to be carefully and gradually "locked out" — made accustomed to the outside air. But in this undertaking the necessary pressure waa so exceptional that when the imprisoned air escaped upward the river for some dis tance bubbled like a mighty caldron, and barges could with difficulty nafigate it. While compressed air is responsible for many ills underground, it is used as a curative agency in the sickroom, notably lor asthma.