McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1884-09-25
LIFE IN HIGH LATITUDES.


A private interview with Lieutenant
Greedy; at his former home, has enabled
us to obtain somewhat clearer insight
into the physiological and pathological
effects of prolonged residence in the
Polar regions, as well as the straits to
which the Greedy party were finally re-
duced. He ascertained that such So
journ, by inhabitants of warmer eli
mates who are in good physical trim,
Is for brief term of years compatible
with high state of all organic func-
tons, in which there is entire freedom
from diseases manifestations of every
kind; but there is decided limit to the
endurance by the Europeans and Amer
leans OF such extreme prolonged cold;
the system is at first, and for a long
time, by an admirable series of internal
adjustments, braced up against the rig
ors OF climate, but after the first year a
considerable deterioration in muscular
and nervous energy, and in the calorig-
enous processes of the economy is eX-
perienced. The severity of the second
winter was found by the party some
what harder to bear, but the experience
of the previous winter had taught them
how best to fortify and protect them
selves, and husband their forces. The
third long Arctic night, in which the
thermometer was never less than three
below zero, and much of the time was
down to forty or fifty below would I'M
der the most favorable circumstances
have been a painful session to the party;
vital reaction was quite perceptibly les
Sened, muscular tone was impaired,
rendering eXertion difficult, and rheu-
matism began to prevail. Could the
party, however, have had plenty of food,
and full and good shelter, they would
undoubtedly have all been living to this
day.
Lieutenant Greedy, in reply to an
interrogatory, affirmed his doubts as to
whether his men, if well provisioned,
could have lived at Fort Conger more
than five years. The constitution of
the average American is not capable of
prolonged continuous adjustment to
more than zero cold, and such ACCLAIM
tizations could only come about after a
series of generations where the law of
survival of the fittest should operate,
and in correspondence with radical
change in organization, in which nutri-
tive and muscular development should
predominant over cerebral development;
in other words, nature has shown us in
she mentally dwarfed but physically
hardy Esquimaux the type of organiza-
ton best fitted for living in those sep
tentrional ATTITUDES. 1t, however, is no
less matter of fact that the inhabitants
of meridinal climes admirably adapt
themselves temporarily to the most ex-
IRENE cold. In the retreat from Mos
COW, in 1912, the Italian regiments stood
the cold better than the Germans, and
notably better than the Russians who
were accustomed to the climate. The
Turks presented the same relative i'm
munity at the siege of Sevastopal.
Longer, from whom these facts are
taken, remarks that the aptitude to re-
sist inclement temperature is acquired
and lost in turn; that people nutured in
temperate or cold climates, who 90 to
the torrid zones to live, are much less
sensitive to the cold for time after
their return to their native country,
though this lessened susceptibility dis
appears after year or two.
As man can live amid intense sur
rounding cold only by keeping his in
ternal temperature at about 983 deg.
F., all the calorigenous centres-which
comprise every living element of cell in
every part of the body-are stimulated
to greatly augmented activity; the re-
spitory, digestive, and assimilative pro-
cesses are performed with unwonted
energy; the hearts action and the cir
culation are notably quickened. Lieu
tenant Greedy remarked that breathing
air of such intense GOODNESS had some
thing of the effect produced by breath
ing pure oxygen; as for pulmonary
troubles he heard no complaint of them
while the party was at Fort Con-
ger, in Lady FARMLAND Bay, at lati-
tude of about 80 deg, where the first
two years were spent; even simple ca
tarrhs were unknown, the only thing
from which men suffered being occa
sional rheumatism and stiffness of the
muscles and joints.
The party had ferocious appetites
during all of this long sojourn in the
North, each man eating with relish three
meals of animal food and two lunches
every day, and carving fats, though
not to the extent which some Arctic
travellers report. Not even when the
thermometer marked so deg. below zero
did these men indulge in crude blubber
or tallow candles, which tradition has
designated as the customary food of
Arctic voyagers; nor was ever pemmi-
can regarded as rare and dainty dish
by them. Canned meats, of which they
had an abundance during the first two
wears, and steak or ragout from the
walrus, seal or Polar bear were priced
as the essential condition of well-being.
Az for spirituous liquors, they were
used with great moderation and doled
out to the members of the expedition as
occasion seemed to demand, and when