DEATHS DUE TO HEAT

Marlborough Express, Volume LXVIII, Issue 148, 25 June 1934, Page 6

DEATHS DUE TO HEAT

■ ~w BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA. LONDON, June 15. The belief that the 123 victims of the black hole of Calcutta died of heat stroke, and not asphyxiafion, as hitherto supposed,is advanced by Dr Joseph Barcroft, Professor of Physiology at Cambridge University, one of the greatest authorities on respiration. The professor frequently risked his life experimenting during the war. Once, when scientists were riisput-ing the efficacy of prussic acid ga-s in warfare, he went into a gasfilled chamber wfth a dog. The dog died within 95 seconds; Professor Barcroft walked out unscathed. . Referring to the problem of protection of London from air raids, the professor says that a possible procedure is to have subterranean rooms in which essential services could be carried on. "I was asked," he said, "how many could work in an unventilated room of a certain size, which in a small way is the problem of what killed the people in the Black Hole of Calcutta. The experiment showed that if there was not through current of air, and the amount of heat produced by the persons therein is greater than the walls can carry away, the temperature of the inhabitants must rise, in extreme cases fatally."