MAN CAN STAND COLD

Waikato Independent, Volume XL, Issue 3667, 13 February 1940, Page 7

MAN CAN STAND COLD

. SYDNEY DOCTOR’S VIEW SEVERE WINTER IN EUROPE Providing a man is in good health, amply clad in warm clothing, and eats food containing plenty of fats, there is no reason why he should not be able to endure a temperature as low as 90 to 100 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit). This opinion was expressed by a Sydney doctor, commenting on the bitter winter in Europe. He was a member of an expedition to the Antarctic, and has endured extremely low temperatures himself. Dr Wilson, a member of Scott’s expedition, to the South Pale, endured a temperature of 76 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit) —103 degrees of, frost—for two months, while Amundsen on his Antarctictrip lived in a temperature of 74 degrees below zero on the Ross River. Admiral Evans, “Evans of the Broke,” lived for several weeks in a temperature of 62 degrees below zero near the South Pole. Food Important In Irkutsk (Siberia), where the temperature drops to as low as 90 degrees below zero, the inhabitants live their normal lives. The doctor said that food played an important part in human, ability to withstand intense cold. In really cold climates, the inhabitants chewed butter and fat with as much relish as Sydney people chew toffee, because fats were essential in building bodily resistance. - All animals in extremely cold climates have a third layer of fat oi blubber between Iheir fur and flesh and the inhabitants .of those areas eat as much fat as meat. People in norlhern Polar regions rely on fur to keep out the cold, said the doctor, but the experience of Antarctic explorers had been that the best way to keep warm was to wear plenty of warm underclothes, with windproof clothing outside.