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ABSTRACT MEN who have been working in compressed air, either under water in diving dresses or diving bells, in caissons used in preparing foundations for bridges, &c., or in making
shafts or tunnels through watery ground, are liable to a variety of symptoms known generally as “caisson disease.” These symptoms, which come on only at or shortlv after the return to
atmospheric pressure, vary in severity from pains in the muscles and joints, known as “bends” or “screws,” to paralysis and even death. Paul Bert showed experimentally thirty years ago that
these attacks are due to the fact that air (chiefly nitrogen) which has been dissolved in the fluids and tissues of the body while under pressure, may, on decompression, be liberated in the
form of bubbles, which produce local or general blocking of the circulation or other injuries. He also showed that if decompression were effected sufficiently slowly, the excess of air which
had been taken up could escape by diffusion through the lungs, and thus bubbling and symptoms could be avoided. The phenomenon is, in fact, that of decompressing soda-water by pushing in
the stopper; the problem of the prevention of caisson disease is how to push it in so slowly that the gas can escape without forming bubbles, and without the loss of so much time that the
primary object of the manoeuvre is frustrated. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution ACCESS OPTIONS Access
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subscriptions * Read our FAQs * Contact customer support RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE _Caisson Disease_ 1 . _Nature_ 79, 40–42 (1908).
https://doi.org/10.1038/079040a0 Download citation * Issue Date: 12 November 1908 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/079040a0 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following link with will be
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