Early High-Altitude Stations and Field Studies

Abstract

It is convenient to use Paul Bert’s monumental book La Pression Barométrique (Bert, 1878) as a watershed separating early studies of high-altitude physiology and medicine from later studies at the turn of the century and in the twentieth century itself. However, it would be misleading to imply that there was a sharp break. For example, as we shall see in Chapter 4, much valuable work was done on the transport of oxygen in blood and tissues by German physiologists such as Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (1816–1895) and Eduard Friedrich Wilhelm Pflüger (1828–1910) in the last half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, their interest in hypoxia and tissue respiration owed much to Bert’s teacher, Claude Bernard (1813–1878), who himself owed a debt to the earlier Italian biologist, Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729–1799).