Further observations on the changes in the breathing and the blood at various high altitudes

Abstract

In a previous investigation carried out in connection with the Anglo-American pike’s Peak Expedition (1911), the changes in the breathing and the blood at high altitudes were recorded at atmospheric pressures ranging from 625 to 458 mm. Of mercury. Lack of time prevented further observations being made, and in the graphic representation of the gases of the alveolar air and of the percentage of hæmoglobin in the blood subsequently published, the supposed values for atmospheric pressures ranging from 625 to 760 mm. of mercury were made by me in North Carolina, U. S. A., during the months of July, August, and September of 1913. Three localities were chosen in the Southern Appalachian chain, approximately between 35° and 35° 6’ N. latitude, and 82° 5’ and 83° 25’ W. longitude : Highlands (altitude 3850 feet), the highest village east of the Rocky Mountains, situated in the Blue Ridge Mountains; Waynesville (altitude 2645 feet) in the Balsam Mountains, and Asheville (altitiude 220 feet) situated in the valley of the French Broad River, with the Blue Ridge Mountains lying to the south and east, and the foot-hills of the Unaka Mountains to the west and north.