Work at High Altitudes.

Otago Witness, Issue 2055, 13 July 1893, Page 49

Work at High Altitudes.

Some practical facts are furnished by the experience of the workmen engaged La the. construction of the new Central railway over the mountains in Fern. The line starts at Lima, in altitude 12deg. The summit tunnel of this line at Galeria is at the height of 15,645 ft, or a little under the height of Mont Blanc, but it must be remembered that the climatic conditions are very different and more unfavourable in Peru than in Europe. Mr E. Lane, the engineer in chief, finds that the workmen, up to an altitude of 800 ft to 'lO.OOOEt, do about the same relative quantity ot work as at the sea level, provided they have been inured to the height or brought up in tbe country. At 12,000 ft tbe amount of work deteriorates, and at 14,000 ft to 16,0001t a full third has to be deducted from the amount that the' same men could perform at sea level. Owing to the absence of malaria the percentage of efficient labour at the greatest elevation is a very high one. Men coming from the coast are not found capable of doing efficient work for about two weeks on an average when taken to high elevations. The capacity gradually increases and reaches its maximum in a few week* or months, according to the constitution of the individual. The majority of the labourers are " Oholos," or Indians born in the Sierra. They are found incapable of doing efficient work on the coasts or in the warmer altitudes without a long course of acclimatisation. If' gangs of these " Cholos" have for Bpecial purposes been taken suddenly down from the Sierra to work at altitudes of from 2000 ft to 5000 ft, sickness and fever have resulted from the change. ' , Mules and horses are found to do about the same efficient work proportionately as human beicgs up to about 17,000 ft in this district;. Mules stand the climate best, but, again, require some weeks for acclimatisation, and it urged to undue exertion at great altitudes they are liable to drop dead suddenly. It may be remarked that the region of perpetual enow in the district begins at about; 18,000ft.—Ninteenth Century. Humanised Milk.—At a late meeting of the Societe de Therapeutiqxie, M. F. Vigwr read a paper on milk irom which the cheesy part had been extracted (lait decccseine), which he called sterilised humanised milk, but which has been used for a long time in England under the name of " humanised milk." M. Vjgier points out that the inconveniences attending the use of cow's milk for feeding infants are due to the excess pf cheesy matter therein, and that this cheesy matter coagulates in the stomach and forms dots too large to be digested. This inconvenience, Mr V;gier showed, does not attend the uee of milk from which the cheesy matter has been extracted. This last is cow's milk of a good quality, from which has been removed, by the ordinary processes employed in the fabrication of cheese, a proportion of casein in excess of that which is found in woman's milk. After a number of trials he ascertained the proportions corresponding to those of woman's milk, and sterilised the product in a stove at 118deg. Below that figure there is a risk of the milk altering; above it the milk becomes discoloured and acquires a more pronounced taste. Infants take to tlia milk very well, and about 500 observations made during the last three years have proved that it does not produce either green diarrhoea or indigestion. Examination of the contents of the stomach during the different stages of digestion show that in tbe stomach of young children this milk produces clotsmuchsmaller than the ordinary cow's milk, and closely resembling those produced by woman's milk.

The Reobbative Exercise oit Play and Its Effects. — The pre-eminently recreative exercise is play. This natural gymnastics brings with it an attraction that animates the most indifferent and gives inspiration to the most phlegmatic. And what a contrast there is between pupils exercising in play and those upon whom a systematic gymnastics is imposed— between English, school children, for example, and French! In France, to everybody's sorrow, the children seem to have a horror of motion. Left to themselves, as soon as they are out of the schoolroom, they walk along slowly in couples or gather in groups in the corners of the yard, and they pass the time in chatting, in 11 philosophising*" Gymnastics is obligatory it is true, on some days and at certain hours ; but a witness of the lesson will be struck with observing that hardly four or five pupils out of 30 execute their exercises conscientiously. The others present themselves in their turn, but bardly outline the movement. Tbe professor incites them, urges them ; and they go back to their places after having made an imitation of an effort. In the English colleges no regulation makes exercises obligatory, and every one is free to dispense with it or to engage in it at will. But all give themselves up to it .with incredible ardour. Weak and strong, young pupils or students 20 years old, all show an equal passion for those plays In the open air, now neglected in France, for which gymnastics has been so unfortunately substituted.— Popular Science Monthly