Mountain Sickness

Abstract

THE reference in the Notes columns of NATURE of January 25 (p. 415) to the physical failure experienced in mountain-climbing at high altitudes sent me to the very instructive (and suggestive) article by Dr. A. M. Kellas, in the Geographical Journal. And the great interest now attached to one of the inevitable problems of the immediate future gave me to think that a few supplementary notes might,be of sufficient interest for publication. The mountain sickness which forms the association that specially interests the physiologist and the physician was impressively brought under the notice of the latter in the fall of the fifteenth century; when the gold-thirst of the ruthless Spanish invader of the western Eldorado made him familiar its symptoms directly after reaching the very elevated backbone of the southern section of the New World. The oldest special description that appeared in print would seem to have been that of Da Costa; and the very human appetite for novelty proceeded very soon to make the mal de montagnes a phrase-name as familiar to Western Europe as that of the mal francaisso very unhappilyrapidly came to be. The syndrome was referred to in the various linguistic territories bordering the giant Cordilleras as: Soroche, mareo des Cordilleras, asthma des montagnes, etc. And the native prophylactic, on the colossal slopes and towering cliffs of the Cordilleras of Peru, was slow and continuous mastication of prepared pellets of the dried juices of Erytliroxylon cocathe original version of American gum-chewing. The phenomena came in time to receive definite scientific discussion, notably at the hands of Bouguier (Voyage en Peru) in 1745, and Condamine (of Peruvian bark fame) in 1751.