BRAVE SCIENTISTS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 28 October 1941, Page 8

BRAVE SCIENTISTS

LIVES RISKED IN TESTS PROFESSOR AND GIRLS London, Oct. 23. Professor J. B. S. Haldane, Professor of Biometry, at University College, London, collapsed several times, and once was unconscious for three hours, after being sealed in a steel chamber, representing a sunken submarine, in which gas was injected under pressure exceeding 10 times that of the atmosphere. Four girl students who were assisting Professor Haldane and Dr. E. M. Case in the experiments to discover a safe method of escape from a submarine risked their lives in the chamber after a male assistant had been taken to hospital with a punctured lung. One girl volunteer was unable to stand the terrific pressure, which was reproduced to simulate a depth of 300 feet, but the others stood up to the test. They did mental arithmetic and simple psychological tests to determine the reaction of the brain and limbs under great pressures. They were put in a decompression chamber, and then given a further test, iii which were reproduced the same I conditions as those found in the escape from a submarine. Each girl went honu with a label pinned to her clothes warning people that if she collapsed she was suffering from “bends”—pressure paralysis—and must be returned to a compression chamber. Dr. Negrin. former Premier of Republican Spain, and at one time Professor cf Biology at the University of Madrid, also is assisting Professor Hal- ; dane in the experiments.