Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-17T05:50:18.142Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Experiments on the Influence of Fatness on Susceptibility to Caisson Disease

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

A. E. Boycott
Affiliation:
(From the Gordon Laboratory, Guy's Hospital.)
G. C. C. Damant
Affiliation:
(From the Gordon Laboratory, Guy's Hospital.)
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

All seven series give answers in the same sense, and we may conclude that we have definite experimental evidence that fatness increases the susceptibility to death from caisson disease. The regularity of the results in the guinea-pig experiments suggests that fatness is here the predominant influence in individual susceptibility. The difference in weight between the “survived” and ‘died” is not always in the same sense, and is in no case very large. The weight factor may therefore be relatively excluded in considering these results : indirectly it is of influence in that rats, like men, tend to become fatter as they grow older. Our results show pretty clearly that females are fatter than males, and, in the guinea-pig series, much more susceptible. Femality, like age, is not a quality which can per se have any influence on susceptibility. The increased susceptibility of females is probably simply due to their increased fatness, which tends to further increase during pregnancy. With regard to symptoms other than death our evidence is very meagre. Some symptoms, e.g. bends, may be presumed to be independent of fatness.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1908

References

Hartley, P. 1907. Journal of Physiology, vol. XXXVI. p. 19.Google Scholar
Vernon, H. M. 1907. Proc. Royal Soc. B. vol. LXXIX. p. 366.Google Scholar
Donaldson, H. H. 1906. Boas Memorial Volume, p. 5.Google Scholar
Hill, L.Greenwood, M. 1908. Proc. Royal Soc. B. vol. LXXX. p. 12.Google Scholar