WONDERFUL TOWER OF HEALTH.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 49, 19 August 1911, Page 8

WONDERFUL TOWER OF HEALTH.

KKMARKABLW BUILDING AS A HOSPITAL. Plans have just been completed in Munich (Bavaria) l>y Professor Rudolf Klein for the construction of a remarkable institution. This structure, which will consist of 18 stories, will in reality be only 260 ft high. The mere pressure of a button, however, will increase the height of the building, in effect, to 18,000 ft. Xor is this all, for the pressure of another button will convert this skyscraper, in effect, to a subterranean chamber, 2000 ft below the level of the sea. These miraculous effects are not produced by any species of legerdemain, but by a series of scientific air pumps and other devices which Professor Klein has invented, and by which he can increase or decrease at will the atmospheric pressure on the various floors. The object of the plan is to combine in one building an atmosphere suitable for persons like consumptives, who require a thin, rarefied air, and a denser atmosphere for those whose blood requires the stimulation of additional oxygen. Tt has long been recognised that the pressure of the atmosphere is of great physiological importance. At sea level the pressure of the atmosphere on all objects upon the earth's surface is approximately 151b to the square inch. Thus a man of average size is subjected to a total pressure of about 34,0001b — more than 15 tons. Such a pressure is rendered harmless, of course, because it is exercised equally in all directions—upwards as well as downwards, from within as well as from without. This normal atmospheric pressure diminishes the higher we ascend, and increases the deeper we descend below the level of the sea. One effect of diminished atmospheric pressure is to reduce the supply of oxygen. Another effect is a remarkable increase of red blood cells, brought about, no doubt, by Nature's attempt to enable the blood to absorb a larger amount of the diminished supply of oxygen. The effect of the increased air pressure, on the other hand, is to increase the supply of oxygen, resulting, to a certain extent, in increased vitality and energy. Medical science has relied upon these physiological phenomena in its treatment of various diseases. It has long been the practice to send patients suffering from incipient tuberculosis to high latitudes in the hope that the deepening inspiration and the increase of red blood cells brought about by the diminished atmospheric pressure may be beneficial. Diseases of the circulatory system, on the other hand, which are aggravated by rarified atmosphere, may he benefited in a denser atmosphere. Oftentimes, however, a patient suffers from a complication of diseases, and it is then most difficult to find a place where the atmospheric pressure is at all suitable. It is mainly for the treatment of such cases as these that Professor Klein's health tower is to be erected. Upon each of the 18 stories a different air pressure will be maintained. The first four stories wil be devoted to high-presßure chambers. Apparatus will be installed sufficient to increase the pressure in these chambers to that existing at a depth of 2000 ft, although it will hardly be necessary to obtain such a high pressure except for experimentation. From the fifth storey to the eighteenth the pressure will be diminished at the rate of a thousand feet or more for each floor, the top storey maintaining a pressure equivalent to that found at an altitude of 18,000 ft. A specially-constructed elevator will run from the bottom to the top, a species of locks or neutral chambers being provided on each floor at the entrance to the elevator shaft, that the particular atmosphere maintained on the particular floor may not be disturbed by the air coming from the elevator shaft.