EFFECTIVE BAR.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 22, 22 December 1932, Page 2

EFFECTIVE BAR.

NO AIR AT GREAT HEIGHTS. That only poets can soar safely into the empyrean is the conclusion of Sir Leonard Hill, late director of applied physiology at the National Institute of Medical Research at Hampstead, as the result of experiments in which he watched the effect of withdrawing tho oxygen from a steel chamber containing animals. A monkey slept when tire density of the oxygen became one-sixth of that in the air at the earth’s surface, a goat began to die with tho density of one-seventh, mice and other small animals were tougher, while birds withstood rarefication to one-ninth of the normal air density. Drowsiness gave the first warning of danger and convulsions due to tire stoppage of lung action followed, whereupon the oxygen was restored and the animals recovered. Sir Leonard Hill declared that the symptoms correspond with those experienced by climbers and airmen at high altitudes. Tho safety limits of flight, he said, appeared to be 20,000 ft. for airmen and climbers breathing the surrounding air, and 50,000 ft. for airmen breathing supplies of oxygon.