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SUMMARY:Respiratory physiology\, experiment and Everest\, from ghastly kit
 chens to gasping lungs - Vanessa Heggie (Department of History and Philoso
 phy of Science)
DTSTART:20100506T153000Z
DTEND:20100506T170000Z
UID:TALK24210@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Alex Broadbent
DESCRIPTION:Mount Everest is an unpromising scientific field site\; expens
 ive to get to\, in a politically sensitive area\, and regularly lethally d
 angerous. It is also provocatively liminal\, as a slight change of weather
  systems can convert a summitable peak into a death zone\, where the barom
 etric pressure is too low for the average human lung to absorb enough oxyg
 en for even basic metabolic processes. Modelling Everest in the laboratory
  poses further challenges: the results of work using barometric chambers\,
  mathematical formulae\, and even plywood boxes to represent the mountain 
 have been confirmed\, complicated and contradicted by anecdote and field s
 tudies. In this paper I will use respiratory physiology\, specifically dis
 agreements over the use of supplemental oxygen\, in order to examine the r
 elationship between field Everest and modelled Everest\, through the eyes 
 of both researchers and climbers. As the ways in which we understand the m
 ountain have led to a decentralisation of the laboratory in favour of the 
 field\, so this paper shifts from the ghastly kitchens of nineteenth-centu
 ry French physiology (complete with vomiting sparrows and catatonic rats) 
 to the 'gasping lungs' of oxygenless ascents\, and medical examinations co
 nducted over 29\,000 feet above sea-level.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, History and Philosophy of Science\, Department o
 f
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