ARID AUSTRALIA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21377, 29 December 1932, Page 5

ARID AUSTRALIA

ENDURANCE OF NATIVES SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY [from our own correspondent] -.V SYDNEY, Dec. 22 Why can a central Australian aboriginal TC exist for three days in terrific heat on half a pint of water-when a white man, in similar conditions, would probably ... perish? This is one of the.problems which Professor Whitridge Davies, professor of physiology at the Sydney University, with threo other scientific investigators, will seek to solve in the next three months. 1 Professor Davies is leading an expedition to Central Australia for a physiological study of the aborigines. Other members of the party are Dr. H. S. Wardlaw, lecturer in physiology and president of tlio New South Wales Anthropological Society, and Messrs. M. R. Joseph and H. R. Barry, two medical students. Pro- r . fesspr Davies and Dr. Wardlaw propose to examine principally the energy exjehango and heat loss'of natives and white settlers of. the .districts where the temperatures are high and the humidity low. It is the contention of the scientists that the ability of native races to main-. tain comfort on exceedingly small water rations has considerable bearing on their successful adaptability to conditions whicli exist in the arid regions. Reports state that natives are able to exist on remarkable small water rations—lower, it is believed, than what world physiologists consider is absolutely necessary in order to. li ve. The party will make . the famous Herihannsburg Mission Station its headquarters and, with its many cases of scientific apparatus, will be conveyed by motor-truck from Alice Springs, the railhead, to the mission, a distance of 80 irjiles. The region is chosen because of its aridity, its isolation and the fact that aborigines in the vicinity have little contact with civilisation.

Dr. Wardlaw explains that as far as is known there is a' certain minimum re- ... quirement of water essential for the maintenance of. the • body' under normal temperatures. The proposed tests on natives will have to do with the accuracy of this dictum and may completely revolutionise . _ the theories that have been propounded by the world's foremost physiologists. In addition to apparatus for measuring losses by perspiration and respiration of the water content of the blood, and an extremely sensitive and accurate balance . • with which it is possible to determine -tho rate of water lost from the body in short periods, meteorological apparatus will be. , employed. . The available data from this region midway between Darwin.and Adelaide i§ very . meagre and the scientists say they he- . lieve that their work will v have great value. Because th« external tomperaturp . will be continuously higher than the normal body, temperature, no errors' are ex.pected iii the. experiments to determine ; ; - the loss of heat due to evaporation from the body. Vapour lost from the lungs will ~ be closely tabulated, and comparisons with results ' of' figures - obtained from eiperiments carried out* in tests at the Medi- x '. ' cal School will be xiiade. '