DEATHS DUE TO HEAT

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 163, 25 June 1934, Page 7

DEATHS DUE TO HEAT

Black Hole of Calcutta The belief that the 123 victims of the black hole of Calcutta died of heat stroke, and not asphyxiation, as hitherto supposed, is advanced by Dr. • Joseph Barcroft, Professor of Physiology at Cambridge University, one of the greatest authorities on respiration. Tho professor frequently risked his life experimenting during the war. Once, when scientists were disputing the efficacy of prussic acid gas in warfare, he went into a gas-filled Chamber with a dog. The dog died within 95 seconds, Professor Barcroft walked out unscathed. Referring to the problem of protection of London from air raids, the professor says that a possible procedure is to have subterranean rooms in which essential services could be carried on. “I was asked,” he said, “how many could work in an unventilated room of a certain size, which in a small way is the problem of what killed the people in the Black Hole of Calcutta. The experiment showed that if there was no through current of air, and the amount of heat produced by the persons therein is greater than the walls can carry aw'ay, the temperature of the inhabitants must rise, in extreme cases fatally.”