AIR SICKNESS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 28 June 1911, Page 7

AIR SICKNESS.

MEDICAL OBSERVATIONS. An instructive communication on the so-called air sickness, to which aviators are liable when tiyingi . at groat altitudes, has (says the Paris correspondent- of the "Daily Telegraph") been made to the Academy of Science by Dr Rene Cruchet, professor at the University of Bordeaux:. He took occasion to study the subject during the altitude competition at t'he Bordeaux aviation meeting, and theresult is that Dr Cruchet is convinced that the air, sickness as' experienced by avia,tors is quite different from "ordinary mountain sickness. It i s wei'L- ; known, the doctor . explains, ©that mountain ■ climbers experience a Qer--i tain sickness, when reaching an eleva-' tdon of GOOOft. Aviators are affected in a similar way, but muclh sooner, when they have reached heights of, say, only.-'3oooft, to 4000tt. The ra ( tion is shortened, the pulse beats" quicker, and headaches follow. 'A gf-neral feeling of sickness is sometimes upset.

The dangers of high flying, therefore, are immensely increased* as the aviator has not only to manage the equilibrium of his machine and wat-cfti the motor, but has also to battle against physiological difficulties which are almost ins-urmounitable. These dirfieulties are greater 1 or smaller according to personal constitutions. Strangely enough the air sickness reaeJhes it maximum, not when rising, but when descending. This, says Dr Cruchet, may -partly be accounted for by the fact that aviators usually descend in five .or ten ■ minutes from heights to which thev took 40 or 50 minutes to mount. The physiological disorders tend to increase l as he nears the ground. The heart beats faster ■than ever, the palpitation becomes audible, the breathing is irregular, tihe buzzing in the ears becomes violent.' Other strange phenomena ' are observed. Aviators feel their face buhrning; they look red and bloodshot in the eyes; the headache is more violent than in tihe ascent; and, what i s worse than all, the eyes close automatically, and the feeling of wanting to go to sleep is invincible.

Thev shut their eyes, in spile of every i [fort li> keep Hiein open, and sometunes doze awav for short intervals. Something of this kind, explains I)r Crochet, must have happened to the bite M. ('have/, when lie fame down after crossing the Alps. A curious story is Told of a young

nviator who was found a-leep in Inis machine, which was partly wrecked •n a Held. He did not know how he had come down or why he landed there. 'l.'ihis peculiarity persisted fur several hour's after the aviator had landed, lj explains also why aviators f. re usually still', and sometiine s almost helpless, when landing. They move about with difficulty, seem to be unconscious of the cheers and applause of spectators, and, though the shed may be only a few step s away. they limp as IheV walk towards it. The studv of the blood, tension also revealed great disorder in the molecular pressure. The blood tension of each altitude competitor was measured before and immediately after the ascent'by means of an oscillometer and at each landing it recorded a hyper -tension, of 11/.l 1 /. to 3 centimetres cf mercury. The tension must have been extreme, considering that it persisted long after the landing. From this we may conclude that aviation for war purposes must consider not only t'hc danger from .the enemy's bullets and the elements, but also from the height at which even mere scouting pilots would have to fly. The moment that the aviator is safe from rifle fire, at a 'height of 4000 ft or 5000 feet, his life is endangered from an. other quarter by air-siekuess, which, at any rate, makes it impossible for him to keep long in certain altitudes.