Abstract
THE effects of diminished atmospheric pressure on the human economy seem to vary so much with different individuals that a few facts of personal experience may be of some interest to those who have attended to the subject. During a somewhat prolonged acquaintance with mountain travelling, I had never felt any of the symptoms described as characteristic of mountain sickness. The only effect of rarified air that I had teen able to verify was that an equal amount of mechanical effect produced at a great height necessitates a greater effort, so that climbing or other muscular effort causes, cæteris paribus, more sense of fatigue. Being in Peru in the month of April last, I was about to avail myself, with a friend, of the opportunity afforded by the reopening for traffic of the Oroya railway, and to spend a few days at Chicla, the present terminus of that remarkable work. The height of Chicla above the sea is 12,200 feet, and we were assured by several residents in Lima that we should infallibly suffer from the soroche, the local name for mountain sickness in Spanish America. Not having ever experienced the slightest inconvenience at heights considerably exceeding that limit in the Alps, I treated these warnings with some derision, and in truth they had passed from my mind on the evening when I arrived at Chicla. I may say at once that neither there nor anywhere else have I experienced any of the symptoms of mountain sickness by day, or while up and moving about after dark. On the evening of our arrival, after a frugal supper we retired to bed about eleven o'clock. Soon after falling asleep, I awoke with a severe headache, which continued throughout the night, allowing only a few short and broken snatches of sleep, but which passed away soon after I rose somewhat before sunrise. On comparing notes with my friend, I found that he also had suffered, from headache during the night; but as he is somewhat subject to that affection, he had not attributed it to any special cause, whereas with me it is most unusual.
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BALL, J. Note on Soroche (Mountain Sickness) in the Andes. Nature 26, 477–478 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/026477b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/026477b0