;.::
rw%
s
¡t
.-.-.
V
-
»
SU RVI VA L
ife in extreme
conditions
A time to live . . .
**
V m
s
©
Volunteer roadworkers
In Lesotho, a small land-locked country in southern Africa, the land is
subject to extensive erosion caused by severe drought followed by
intensive rainfall, by heavy over-grazing, and fuel-wood cutting. To
combat erosion, increase agricultural production, improve the road
network and encourage the development of village woodlots, the Gov¬
ernment of Lesotho, assisted by the United Nations World Food Prog¬
ramme, organized a food-for-work project with voluntary labourers.
Women constituted 90 per cent of the work-force. Above, labourers
shovel earth while widening a track into a road.
55 Lesotho
Editorial
June 1987
40th year
Man has always lived dangerously, ever since his most distant
ancestor, a hominid who probably lived on the African continent,
Survival
took the first steps along the path of human evolution and
Human adaptation to extreme conditions
by Felix Z. Meerson
discovered that a stone held in the hand could be used as a tool or a
8
weapon.
It's tough at the top
Life at high altitude
From the dawn of history onwards, human beings continually
courted danger as the struggle for survival schooled them in
resourcefulness and impelled them to the limits of endurance. This
by Gerardo Antesena, Mario Paz-Zamora
and Enrique Vargas
determination to perform seemingly impossible feats is a thread
12
which runs through the pattern of human destiny and helps to
Travelling light
Coping with weightlessness in space
by Oleg G. Gazenko
explain the extraordinary efforts made by human communities in
various parts of the world to adapt to extremely rigorous
14
environmental conditions. From the primitive hunters who
The time of our lives
confronted their prey armed only with a stone axe, to the space
physical and mental condition in order to spend long periods in a
Subterranean experiments on the rhythms
imposed by the solar day
by Michel Siffre
state of weightlessness, human beings have always shown
16
capacities for adaptation both to the natural environment and to
The desert as a way of life
their self-imposed challenges. Man is by nature an inventive,
by Hamidou A. Sidikou
forward-looking being whose relentless drive to master himself
20
and the world around him is so strong that today some fear that it
Hunter-gatherers of the tropical forest
may even lead him along the road to destruction.
by Laurentiu Palade
travellers of the late twentieth century who must reach peak
This issue of the Unesco Courier looks at the processes of human
adaptation and endurance as they are revealed in a number of
23
The sea within us
extreme and potentially dangerous situations. A medical doctor
by Dan Behrman
describes his gruelling experiences during a solo expedition to the
27
North Pole on skis, while another scientist presents some of the
Stress in the modern world
findings of his extraordinary experiments in long-term
by Lennart Levi
confinement underground, cut off from the rhythms of the solar
30
day. Other articles examine the ways in which space voyagers deal
Solo to the Pole
with weightlessness; the mechanisms of adjustment to high
Interview with Jean-Louis Etienne
altitudes; adaptation to conditions in deserts and tropical forests,
33
to life on and under the sea, and to the wear and tear of everyday
Marathon Man
existence in the modern world. Finally we evoke the phenomenal
by Bredo Berntsen
exploits of a Norwegian long-distance runner who a century and a
half ago ran across Europe and parts of Asia and Africa at a rate of
A time to live...
around 150 km a day.
LESOTHO: Volunteer roadworkers
Cover: Caravan in the Sahara (Mauritania).
Photo ©MaximilienBruggmann, Yverdon,
Editor-in-chief: Edouard Glissant
The Courier
A window open on the world
Published monthly in 33 languages
by Unesco
Switzerland
English
Italian
Turkish
Macedonian
Finnish
A selection in Braille is
French
Hindi
Urdu
Serbo-Croat
Swedish
published quarterly in English.
Spanish
Tamil
Catalan
Slovene
Basque
Russian
Hebrew
Malaysian
Chinese
Thai
German
Persian
Korean
Bulgarian
Vietnamese
Arabic
Dutch
Swahili
Greek
Japanese
Portuguese
Croato-Serb
Sinhala
The United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization
7, Place de Fontenoy, 75700 Paris.
French, Spanish and Korean
ISSN 0041-5278
N°6-1987-CPD-87-l-'i46 A
SURVIVAL
Human adaptation
to extreme conditions
by Felix Z. Meerson
ADAPTATION, in human beings
and in animals, is a process
most without stopping to rest, whereas a
children continued going to school in
trained runner can cover more than 40
temperatures of -57 °C and herds of
whereby the organism gradually
kilometres. The cold weather which hit
thoroughbred horses grazed as usual,
acquires resistance to certain factors in its
Western Europe in the winter of 1986-87
watched over by their herdsmen.
environment
the
had catastrophic effects in some countries
In the field of intellectual activity,
capacity to live in conditions previously
and caused a number of deaths. During
incompatible with life, and to solve pre¬
the same period in Verkhoyansk, a town
viously unsolved problems.
in eastern Siberia and one of the coldest
where adaptive reactions are qual¬
itatively more complex, the transition
from the stage of extreme tension to that
of stable adaptation is manifested in an
"To
live
and
in
consequently
conditions
previously
incompatible with life" can mean com¬
plete adaptation, allowing a wide range
of physical and intellectual activity as well
as the perpetuation of the species in con¬
ditions of polar cold, desert heat or short¬
age of oxygen at high altitudes, just as it
can mean a far from complete adaptation
which permits only survival for a more or
less extended period.
Likewise,
"to
solve
previously
unsolved problems" includes resolution
of elementary problems, such as how to
avoid attacks by predators by standing
a passive defence reflex or
stock still
of more complex ones, such as travelling
in space or controlling the life processes
of the organism.
All these adaptive mechanisms have
one feature in common: although in the
initial phase of adaptation to any new
factor the organism is close to the limits of
its capacities, the manner in which it
solves the problem is far from perfect.
However, if the person or animal con¬
cerned survives, and the causal agent of
adaptation continues to be active, the
possibilities open to the organism
increase and the extreme or urgent stage
is replaced by one of effective, stable
adaptation.
This
transformation
is
the
crucial
moment in the whole process, and it often
has' remarkable consequences, as in the
case of the experiments carried out by a
Peruvian scientist who "lifted" in a pres¬
surized chamber a group of people, some
of whom were already adapted to high
altitudes while others were not. When the
pressure was equivalent to that at an alti¬
tude of 7,000 metres the novices lost con¬
sciousness, while the others continued
playing chess.
Similarly, a healthy but untrained per¬
son can run a few hundred metres at the
places on Earth, eight- to nine-year-old
In 1984 a group of walkers crossed a part
of the Kara-Kum desert in the Turkmen
S.S.R. during a Soviet experiment on life in
desert regions. The walkers were not
allowed to drink water during this
endurance test,
which was closely
monitored by doctors. Right, a doctor
examines two walkers during a rest
period.
In 1979, a seven-man Soviet expedition
reached the North Pole after a 1,500 km
trek on skis across drifting ice. The expedi¬
tion, which took two and a half months,
made a notable contribution to knowledge
about life in Arctic regions (see the Unesco
Courier, January 1980). A ceremony (be¬
low) was organized at the Pole to celebrate
the achievement.
equally striking manner. This transfor¬
mation of an unadapted organism into an
adapted one is well known, and has been
described in detail.
Two interrelated series of phenomena
develop in the organism faced with a new
situation. In the first series there is a rapid
development in the function of the sys¬
tem most directly concerned in the adap¬
tation process, for example the organs of
movement, blood circulation or respira¬
tion when a physical effort is involved, or
specialized parts of the brain during train¬
ing and acquisition of new skills. The cells
react by increasing the synthesis of
nucleic acids and proteins, and a selective
development of the structures limiting
the function occurs. Thus, during adapta¬
tion to altitude or physical effort, the cor¬
onary arteries expand and there is a two
'*tri
i
to threefold increase in the number of
"power stations" (mitochondria) in the
skeletal muscles. As a result, a series of
changes takes place in the cells of the
dominant system, that on which adapta¬
tion depends, which increases the phys¬
iological capacity of the system and forms
the material basis for the transition from
an extreme stage to genuine adapta¬
tion.
The second series of phenomena is the
well-known stress reaction discovered by
the Canadian biologist Hans Selye, which
he
called
"general
adaptation
syn¬
drome". It is now known that the stress
reaction manifested by the secretion of
adrenal hormones into the blood not only
mobilizes the organism's energy and
structural resources, but also ensures
their transfer from inactive systems to the
dominant system. In other words, the
reaction allows the
vitally important
problem created by the environment to
be solved. When adaptation has been
achieved and the individual has become
accustomed to the cold, or learned to
solve mathematical problems or to play
the piano, the stress reaction disappears.
Adaptation to other physical or chemical
factors in the environment takes place in
the same way (e.g., gradual habituation
to increasing doses of poison).
Afterwards the organism can no longer
be damaged by the external factor to
which it has become adapted. It is
remarkable that the multiple reactions
set off by the process of adaptation to one
environmental factor frequently contain
"
components which heighten resistance to
other factors. Thus adaptation to an
insufficiency of oxygen strengthens the
organism's resistance to physical effort,
hallucinogens, epileptogens, factors pro¬
ducing
high
blood
pressure,
stress
damage to the heart, ischaemia (interrup¬
tion of the blood supply to an organ or
tissue), and even to ionizing radiation.
This opens up vast possibilities for the
utilization of adaptation in the preven¬
tion and treatment of diseases. Nowa¬
days, when extensive use
cases abuse
and in some
of medicines creates a real
possibility of dependence on them, it
would be useful to have doctors pre¬
scribe, not only medicines, but adapta¬
tion to a complex of individually selected
m
factors.
It is now known that external stress can
provoke or speed up the development of
gastric and duodenal ulcers, high blood
pressure,
arteriosclerosis,
ischaemic
heart ailments, diabetes, mental disor¬
ders, skin troubles and
shown recently
as has been
tumours.
*
Below, Soviet divers study the diffusion of
light underwater, during research in the
Indian Ocean conducted by the Marine
-^*v-»
v*~*>
w y
«-«
v
Biology Institute of the USSR Academy of
Sciences Centre for the Far East.
However, the role of stress in certain
pathological conditions is now so well
known that it may obscure the important
fact that most human beings and animals,
placed in extreme conditions from which
there is no escape, do not die but acquire
some degree of resistance which allows
them to survive until better times. Such
situations
prolonged periods of hunger,
cold, natural catastrophes, interspecific
and intraspecific conflicts
still occur
widely among animals in their natural
habitat.
More complex stress situations occur
just as frequently in human society. Dur¬
ing a relatively short historical era man
has survived periods of slavery, serfdom
and world war in such a way as to prove
the efficiency of his powers of adaptation .
Of course, the price of this adaptation has
been unjustifiably high, but these indis¬
putable facts inevitably lead to the con¬
clusion that the human organism must be
*
»_
*
. ~*
*
endowed with efficient specialized mech¬
the organism from gastric ulcers, heart
The little town of Verkhoyansk in eastern
anisms that limit the reaction to stress and
damage , impairment of immune systems ,
prevent stress damage.
arrhythmia, and injury caused by chemi¬
Siberia (Yakut Autonomous S.S.R.) is one
of the coldest places on Earth. Common
winter temperatures of -60°C do not dis¬
Research carried out in the last decade
has
confirmed
the
existence
cal factors.
of these
These facts generally correspond to
stress-inhibiting mechanisms. It has been
what can be observed in everyday life.
shown that under pressure from extreme
People who have experienced terrible
tensions, the stress reaction is accom¬
ordeals acquire a certain resistance to the
panied by intensified activity of the cen¬
tral stress-inhibiting systems. One exam¬
wear and tear of life. Moreover, the pos¬
ple is the increased production in the
ing
brain of morphine-like opiate peptides
inhibiting centres, equivalent substances
and
substances
produced
by
stress-
the
produced by synthesis, and the chemical
activators of such inhibiting systems, as
accumulate in the brain and neutralize
substitutes for the natural mechanisms of
the
adaptation, in order to protect the organ¬
substances which
reaction.
stress-inducing
These
limit
excitation
of the
nerve-centres.
above.
sibility can now be envisaged of employ¬
substances
other
stress
turb the tenor of life. A hardy local breed of
horses Is raised on a Verkhoyansk farm,
ism
from
stress
and
other
forms
of
FELIX
ZALMANOVICH
MEERSON,
Soviet
specialist in pathology, is president of the Spe¬
cialized Commission on the Pathophysiology of
Adaptation Processes attached to the Scientific
Council of the USSR Academy of Medicine. A
World Health Organization (WHO) expert and a
member of the editorial boards of several inter¬
The activity Of the stress inhibitors also
damage. This theory, now largely con¬
intensifies in the other organs, where sub¬
firmed by experiment, opens up highly
stances accumulate that limit the action
promising prospects for the prevention
of stress hormones on the cells and pre¬
and treatment of non-infectious diseases.
vent stress damage. The dual activity of
national science journals, he is the author of 14
monographs, some of which have also been
published in the USA, the Fed. Rep. of Germany
and in Japan, and is co-editor-in-chief with Aca¬
demician Oleg G. Gazenko of The Physiology of
Adaptation Processes (1986). He was awarded
central and local stress inhibitors protects
the USSR State Prize in 1978.
-fc »
"
IT'S
by Gerardo Antesena,
Mario Paz-Zamora
and Enrique Vargas
|HE overwhelming majority of the
world's population live between
sea level and an altitude of 3,000
T
metres. Only some 15 million persons live
in permanent settlements between that
level and 4,800 metres, mainly on the
high plateaux of the Andes in South
America, and of Tibet in Central Asia.
Altitude inevitably imposes constraints
on people who live in these regions. In the
first century AD, Pan Kou, a Chinese
historian, described in these terms the
Karakoram mountain range in Central
Asia: "It is necessary to cross two moun¬
tains, one large and one small, which
make the head ache. The earth lies naked
there, on the scorching slopes, and the
human body loses its colour because of
the heat; the torrid sun causes headaches
and nausea, and it has the same effect on
animals ..."
Father José de Acosta, a Jesuit mis¬
sionary to the New World, describes
acute mountain sickness in his treatise
Historia natural y moral de las Indias
(1590; Natural and Moral History of the
Indies, 1604), and relates it to the fact that
at such altitudes "the air is so subtle and
so refined that it is unsuited to human
respiration,
which
needs
air
that
is
thicker and more temperate ..."
What exactly is meant by the term alti¬
tude? Altitude in the sense of environ¬
ment consists of a number of physical fac¬
tors,
principally the
lowering of
barometric pressure1 and therefore of the
partial pressures2 of respiratory gases , the
wide range of variation in day and night
temperatures, increased solar radiation
and a greater incidence of high-energy
heavy particles in the atmosphere.
The lowering of barometric pressure is
by far the most important factor as far as
man is concerned, arid it is an unavoida¬
ble constraint to which technology has
found no practical long-term solution.
Consequently, the values of the partial
Suspension
bridge
over
the
river
Apurimac in the eastern cordillera (Peru)
was made of plaited grass using tech¬
niques known to the Incas. It is rebuilt
every year.
1. Atmospheric pressure as indicated by a barometer,
usually of mercury, and expressed in several different
systems of units, such as pounds per square inch, or
millimetres of mercury.
2. The pressure that a gas, in a mixture of gases, would
exert if it alone occupied the whole volume occupied by
the mixture.
8
TOUGH AT THE TOP
Life at high altitude
(i.e. in altitude) have little effect on the
The Ourou Indians live in floating settle¬
amount of oxygen contained in the blood .
ments on Lake Titicaca, one of the world's
usually taken as the basis for determining
(The normal arterial blood pressure at
the physiological limits of altitude.
sea level is 90 millimetres of mercury.);
biggest mountain lakes (8,340 km', alti¬
tude 3,812 m), on the border of Peru and
Bolivia. Above, a group of Ourou Indians in
pressure of respiratory gases, especially
that of oxygen in the arterial blood, are
"Physiological" altitude therefore does
- between 70 and 40 millimetres of merc¬
not correspond to physical altitude. On
ury, the effect of the fall in the partial
the one hand, the fall in atmospheric
pressure
pressure is not directly proportional to
noticeable;
height above sea level; on the other, the
- below 40 millimetres of mercury, the
oxygen content of the blood is not a sim¬
oxygen content of the blood falls consid¬
ple function of the partial pressure of oxy¬
gen in the air. Three levels can be dis¬
tinguished, according to the value of the
partial pressure of oxygen in arterial
erably and more or less constantly with
blood:
respond to the first level; there are no
-
above
70
millimetres
of mercury,
changes in the partial pressure of oxygen
of
oxygen
becomes
more
small changes in the partial pressure of
oxygen.
Altitudes of less than 3,300 metres cor¬
significant effects on the oxygen trans¬
porting function of the blood.
their boats made of bundled reeds.
S* *-
ft **
«UI
'
".WfV-
»Mi
Harvest scene In the Dolpo Valley (Nepal),
4,000 m up in the Himalayas. Barley is the
only cereal grown in the valley.
It is impossible for man to live perma¬
oxygen they need, despite its rarefaction
raise, and they are always at the mercy of
in the atmosphere. The first is an immedi¬
a severe winter which could decimate
metres.
ate functional response; the second is
Altitude, in the physiological sense of
the term, thus corresponds to a level of
more adaptive and takes over from the
their beasts. They also rely on the water
supply from glaciers to irrigate their
first.
fields.
between 3,300 and 5,500 metres (a baro¬
metric pressure of between 500 and 370
millimetres of mercury).
The main problem for the human
organism in such an environment con¬
Reduced barometric pressure is not the
nently at the third level
above 5,500
The people who live in
the high
plateaux of South America or Central
usually an associated factor. Some phys¬
Asia lead an active life as farmers and
iological
herdsmen. Their extensive empirical
knowledge of the soil and climatic condi¬
responses
to
cold,
such
as
decreased circulation to the skin, are
sequently lies in transferring oxygen from
also among the responses to altitude
the atmosphere to the cells.
hypoxia.3
tory system, and the circulatory system
control mechanisms of the human organ¬
tions has enabled them to create a highly
efficient system of terraced irrigation and
cultivation. They follow a sowing time¬
table which ensures that crops can be har¬
vested in the minimum of time, and they
which distributes to the various tissues
ism work in
know
the oxygen bonded to the haemoglobin in
conditions. However, in temperate and
increase their resistance and how to store
the blood. At an altitude of over 3,500
tropical regions people live at heights
metres the partial pressure of oxygen in
where the barometric pressure is close to
food as a precaution against irregular har¬
vests. The growing of cereals and the rais¬
the
ing of animals are closely interdepen¬
Like the higher animals, man has two
Man is thus not naturally suited to life
active transfer mechanisms: the respira¬
at high altitudes; all the regulatory and
air is
insufficient
to
cross-breed
animals
to
half that of sea level, and most of the
body's functions have adjusted accord¬
dent, for intensive agriculture is only
tion
ingly.
possible if manure is available.
are
saturate
how
the
rates
to
accordance with sea level
haemoglobin. Respiration and circula¬
therefore
the
most
affected.
People have travelled through and
more
times. They have served as places of
haemoglobin circulating in their blood,
refuge or as extensions of land used for
The Andean peoples grow potatoes,
maize (corn), fava beans and quinoa (a
plant of the Chenopodium family) and
raise llamas and vicunas. They use the
and this makes up for the fall in the partial
stock-rearing, for example. The inhabi¬
wool and meat of another camelid, the
pressure of oxygen. This increase in red
tants have adapted physiologically to
alpaca, as well as its skin and its fat, which
corpuscles at high altitudes allows the
these exceptional living conditions, but
cardiac output to return to, or sustain, its
they depend for subsistence on the poor
is thought to have therapeutic powers.
The breeding of these animals and of
sea level value. These two responses,
greater cardiac output and an increase- in
the number of red corpuscles, have the
pasture land which feeds the animals they
oxen and sheep, which were introduced
People living at high altitudes have
more
red
corpuscles
and
same purpose: to convey to the tissues the
10
only constraint due to altitude; cold is
lived in high altitude regions since ancient
in the sixteenth century, is their main live¬
3. Deficiency in the amount of oxygen delivered to the
body tissues.
lihood: a herd of 200 animals is needed to
maintain a family of six.
Several centuries of exploitation of
mineral resources have led some peoples
tems
to settle at altitudes of around 4,800
able resources (in the case of the Andes,
metres at the Chorolque mine in
Bolivia, for example.
In Central Asia,
by making the maximum use of the ecolo¬
gical zones at different altitudes). Their
the farmers who live in the southernmost
aim is to take from the environment all
and easternmost valleys of Tibet grow
barley, peas and, more recently, potatoes
on irrigated land. They also raise oxen
and sheep.
that is necessary to meet their needs, at
Nomadic tent-dwelling herdsmen in
societies and their environment, and it is
these regions live entirely by stock-rear¬
ing. In the main they breed animals such
to be seen not only in agriculture and
as yaks, sheep, goats and horses, which
activities of their life
are well suited to the conditions. The yak
provides them with milk, from which they
of food, shelter and a dwelling-place.
The very wide range of individual reac¬
tions suggests that altitude may have had
make butter and cheese, as well as meat,
designed
to
subjugate
nature,
reduce risk, and make the most of avail¬
the same time eliminating or reducing cli¬
matic risks. This is a basic feature of the
relationship
between
stock-rearing,
but
in
high
all
the
a selection pressure on peoples living per¬
manently in high-altitude regions, and
greater part of the transport and trade in
that throughout the generations such
salt, bartered for grain from the lower-
selection may have favoured people who
were better suited to develop favourable
lying valleys.
In order to obtain food and survive at
responses and, even more, to reduce
high altitudes, the inhabitants of the
those
Andean and the Central Asian mountain
unfavourable.
ranges have developed production sys
responses
PAZ-
are directors of research on the high-altitude
physiology and pathology of man in the Andes, at
the Bolivian Institute of High-Altitude Biology
(IBBA) of the Major San Andres University, La
Paz. These studies are also carried out at the
high-altitude stations of Potosí (4,200 m),
Chorolque (4,800 m) and in the lowlands at
Santa Cruz (400 m).
other
the
control
MARIO
the procurement
burden.
nomads
ANTESENA,
ZAMORA and ENRIQUE VARGAS, of Bolivia,
mountain
skins and hair; it is also used as a beast of
These
GERARDO
likely
to
prove
Entrance shaft of the "Siglo XX" tin mine,
part of Bolivia's most important mining
complex. The Bolivian writer Sergio
Almaraz Paz has written of this mining
region, over 4,000 m up In the Bolivian
Highlands or Altiplano, "There is no
colour; nature is clad in grey. Contaminat¬
ing the belly of the earth, the ore has trans¬
formed it into a desert. "
11
TRAVEUmG__LIGHT
Coping with weightlessness in space
by Oleg G. Gazenko
IT is just over a quarter of a century
since man first ventured into space.
call for continual progress in medical
An assessment of the achievements
remain healthy and capable of working at
full capacity.
Already, the findings of such research
have opened up new perspectives on the
workings of the human organism, leading
notably to a greater understanding of the
general laws governing adaptation to the
environment, and above all adaptation to
such an unusual condition as weightless¬
ness, which man does not experience on
of astronautics so far indicates that man
now,has a firm foothold in the realm of
space travel and that the human factor
will be decisive in the conquest of outer
space.
Today systematic study is being made
of all aspects of the Universe, with pri¬
ority being given to the exploration of the
Earth from space and to the use of space
technology to solve many of the problems
of our planet.
that human beings can indeed journey
through space, flung open the gateway to
research to ensure that space travellers
the stars.
How does weightlessness influence the
human organism? What changes does it
produce, and what shocks can it cause
against
preventive
measures
Weightlessness first of all produces a
sensation of disequilibrium and of float¬
ing, due to a disruption in the normal
functioning of sense organs such as the
Earth.
vestibular apparatus of the inner ear,
the
sight, touch and muscle awareness. The
Every space flight makes an important
human body has never had occasion to
contribution to this enterprise, furthering
make use of mechanisms capable of com¬
cosmonaut has the impression of flying
upside down or falling. Sometimes this is
the study of the Earth's natural resources
pensating for absence of gravity. On the
and of the world ocean, the application of
contrary, the whole evolutionary process
accompanied by disagreeable and very
uncomfortable sensations of giddiness,
new technologies and the development of
has been to fight against the force of grav¬
weakness or nausea. The form and dura¬
new products (especially pharmaceutical
ity, in order to survive in the continual
tion of these symptoms vary greatly from
compounds and biological substances
heaviness imposed by the Earth's gravita¬
one individual to another. On more than
which are difficult or impossible to ob¬
tional
the
200 space flights, two-thirds of the sub¬
tain on Earth because of the effects of
development of the structures and func¬
jects experienced them to some extent,
gravity)
tions of the cardio-vascular system, the
lasting for periods ranging from a few
environment.
motor system and the central nervous
Cosmonauts are remaining in space for.
longer and longer periods and are
required to perform increasingly numer¬
ous and complex tasks, including man¬
oeuvres outside their spacecraft, which
system.
attained, which makes us human, is thus a
hours to several days. Subsequently the
symptoms wear off, only to reappear, as a
rule, for the first few hours or days after
returning to the Earth's gravitational
logical development, and the individual
field.
and
the
monitoring
of the
Throughout
pull.
its
long evolution
Gravity
influenced
The degree of adjustment that we have
in the course of his life is capable of refin¬
The absence of gravity subjects the car-
ing and improving that adaptation, just as
he can lose it, at least in part, usually
through ageing or illness. However it has
been observed that this can also happen
to young, healthy subjects when they
travel in space and experience weight¬
lessness.
Before the first manned space flight,
some scientists claimed that man would
be incapable of working in a state of
weightlessness. They even went so far as
to declare that a normal human being
would be psychologically unable to cope
with the state of weightlessness and the
cosmic void. The space flight of Yury
Gagarin resoundingly disproved these
pessimistic predictions and, by showing
12
which
should be taken?
On board the U.S. Space Shuttle Columbia,
gjl
The astronaut at left tries out a sleeping
bag, while another, right, equipped with
suction cups on the soles of his shoes,
@|
g^
floats with two cameras in a state of
weightlessness.
|
è
dio-vascular system to a redistribution of
These measures include, first and fore¬
the total amount of blood in the body:
instead of accumulating in the lower part
of the body, the blood tends to rise into
the thoracic and cephalic regions. This
modifies the regulation of the heart and
most, physical training on bicycles and
moving running-tracks to tone up the
muscles. During long space flights, cos¬
monauts
walk
approximately 5
kilo¬
metres a day, and cycle for some 10 kilo¬
the metabolism of the cardiac muscle,
metres. The amount of exercise depends
which gradually weakens, and also causes
on the day in the training cycle, the dura¬
a loss of tone and elasticity in the veins of
the legs. If this state is prolonged, the
absence of blood pressure causes a deteri¬
characteristics of the body. Additional
oration in the reactions of the cardio-vas-
apparatus can also be carried out if
cular system to physical effort or to move¬
necessary.
ment, and it starts to "run down".
tion of the flight and the individual
exercises
using
extensors
and
other
To prevent circulatory disorders, the
As the influence of weightlessness con¬
cosmonauts have to exercise while nega¬
tinues, other forms of reaction emerge,
tive pressure is applied to the lower part
of the body. They put on a special gar
owing to the lack of demands made on the
bones and muscles. Indeed, without grav¬
ity, no effort is required to move around
inside the space station or to shift objects
from one place to another. A gradual
Above, two cosmonauts take a shower on
board the orbiting Soviet space station
Salyut 7.
functional atrophy of the muscles occurs,
starting with those which are used to com¬
bat gravity, hold certain positions and
compensate for the Earth's gravitational
Left, a cosmonaut (foreground) works out
on an ergometric bicycle in the Soviet
space station Salyut 7. This type of exer¬
cise is vital to enable the body to readapt
to Earth's gravity after a time spent in
pull during movement. This leads to a
partial wastage of the muscle mass,
especially the muscles of the legs and
back.
Decalcification of bone tissue occurs
space.
through loss of calcium salts and phos¬
phorus, but this has never reached alarm¬
ing levels, even on the longest space
flights. However, if effective measures
are
could
Much is now known about the body's
become a serious obstacle to longer man¬
not
taken,
decalcification
reactions to weightlessness, and how
ned space flights.
these reactions come about is largely
These phenomena and other phys¬
understood. The general impression is
iological reactions to weightlessness are
that man is capable of adapting satisfac¬
primarily functional and do not constitute
torily to a prolonged state of weightless¬
a threat to cosmonauts' health.
ness, then of re-adapting to gravity and
smoothly returning to a normal and use¬
Furthermore, it is abundantly clear
ful life on Earth.
that human adaptation to the state of
However,
weightlessness signifies, to some extent, a
since
human
health
and
safety are at stake, it is important to
loss of adaptation to the conditions of life
on Earth. A rather singular situation then
assess each new step in space exploration
arises: the more complete the adaptation
with meticulous accuracy, and to pay the
closest possible attention to the smallest
to weightlessness, the more difficult is the
process of .readaptation after re-entry.
All cosmonauts who have spent time in
orbit are familiar with this experience.
How far this process can be a threat to
their health
is
difficult
to
determine.
Adequate scientific evidence is lacking to
enable a valid judgement to be made,
ment like a pair of baggy trousers made of
details in the growing store of experience.
stretch fabric, in which a vacuum pump
establishes a permanent degree of nega¬
tive pressure. As a result the blood flows
Nothing must be overlooked, from the
into the lower parts of the body, where
the blood pressure rises to the same level
complications likely to be faced on future
as on Earth. This stimulates circulation in
medical research in space, has a long way
remote consequences of space flights
already undertaken to the difficulties and
flights. Science, especially biological and
since for all space flights lasting more
the legs and prevents reduction of the
to go in order to perfect knowledge of
than three weeks various methods have
ability to stand upright which tends to
Man and the Universe and penetrate the
been used to protect the cosmonauts
affect cosmonauts returning to Earth.
complexities of the interaction between
from the negative influence of weight¬
During the last few days of the flight
the cosmonauts take in salt-water solu¬
lessness.
In view of the increasing duration of
tions, causing fluid retention and an
space flights, doctors have been obliged
increase in the volume of blood. This also
to devise ways and means of counteract¬
makes it easier for them to maintain an
ing too great an adaptation to weightless¬
upright stance on their return. Another
ness, in order to ensure that the mecha¬
very important preventive measure is to
nisms indispensable to life governed by
add an extra ration of vitamins and trace
the Earth's gravitational field continue to
elements to the diet.
the two, thereby helping to achieve a har¬
monious relationship.
OLEG GEORGIEVICH GAZENKO, Soviet sci¬
entist, is director of the Institute of Medical and
Biological Problems and president of the Soviet
I. P. Pavlov Society. He is an active member of
the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and of the
"Man in Space Studies" Committee of the Inter¬
national Academy of Astronautics. The author of
function effectively. It has been neces¬
In the future, recourse will very proba¬
over 200 scientific studies, he was Soviet editor
sary to prevent the body's systems from
bly be had to artificial gravity, but this is a
of a Soviet/U.S. publication, Foundations of
"forgetting" their terrestrial vocation and
complex problem which calls for very
to
careful study, through experiments both
Space Biology and Medicine (7975, in Russian
and English). He was a recipient of the USSR
State Prize in 1978 and the Guggenheim Inter¬
on Earth and in space.
national Astronautics Award in 1975.
"remind"
Earth.
them
of
their, role
on
13
Subterranean experiments on the rhythms imposed by the solar day
PHYSIOLOGISTS since the time of
phase, serious physical and psychological
Hippocrates and probably even ear¬
troubles can result. It is common knowl¬
even when they are kept either in total
lier have demonstrated the impor¬
edge that total deprivation of sleep over a
obscurity or in continuous light. However,
tant ways in which man is conditioned by
environmental rhythms, especially the
period of several days is certain to entail
concentrated research on the adaptation of
marked deterioration in mental and physi¬
the
twenty-four-hour alternation of night and
cal performance. After an east/west or west/
environment, that is to say to an environ¬
human
organism
to
an
aperiodic
east flight of only a few hours it may take a
ment in which the normal phase setters or
In man, as in other animals and plants,
passenger's rectal temperature rhythm as
synchronizers are lacking, only began in
rhythmic variations in a whole range of
long as fifteen days to adapt to the appropri¬
ate rhythm of the new local time.
earnest in 1962.
day.
physiological functions alternation be¬
tween sleep and waking activity, formation
of glycogen (animal starch) in the liver,
temperature change, metabolism, for
example
14
hours continue in many plants and animals
occur regularly every twenty-
The three main situations in which these
It is generally held that, under normal
conditions apply are those in which people
conditions on earth, environmental factors,
find themselves living for long periods in
and especially the alternation of night and
space, underground or under water. Would
the human organism continue to show evi¬
day, act as phase-setters or synchronizers
four hours.
which maintain the coincidence between
dence of regulation by circadian rhythms
Known as "circadian rhythms" (from the
Latin circa: "about", and dies: "day"),
human circadian rhythms and the local
once deprived of the environmental syn¬
twenty-four-hour
What,
chronizers it had known throughout the mil¬
these more or less independent or inter¬
however, would happen to our biological
lions of years of human evolution? Are
dependent rhythmic variations, operating
throughout the day/night cycle, constitute
rhythms, to the bundle of nerve cells whose
there, in fact, other rhythms specific to the
precise location in the brain is now being
human organism?
the mechanism that is termed man's "bio¬
established and which register the periodic
This was the crux of my long-term experi¬
logical clock".
These circadian rhythms are of consid¬
signals of the environment, were those sig¬
ments, deep iq an underground cave, which
nals to be suppressed?
have added to our knowledge of how man
erable importance. If they are interrupted
Botanists and biologists have known for a
adapts to a timeless, aperiodic environ¬
or too rapidly or abruptly thrown out of
long time that cycles of about twenty-four
ment. These experiments have shown how
time
scale.
Left, Michel Siffre's subterranean camp in
Midnight Cave (Texas). The ergometric
bicycle enabled him to study heart fatigue
patterns during his confinement.
double the period of waking activity, a very
devoted to each stage of sleep, especially to
considerable potential increase in creative
REM sleep and to what is known as Stage 4
activity, entirely naturally and without hav¬
sleep (deep sleep), as a function of total
ing recourse to any form of drug, for a
period of several weeks.
sleep and in relation to the biological cycles
Desynchronization
of
the
and the waking period.
circadian
In short, the neurophysiological adapta¬
rhythm of sleep and waking activity is paral¬
tion of the human organism in an "out of
time" setting is marked by profound modi¬
complex that adaptation is and how much it
leled in most of the other physiological
varies from individual to individual, and
rhythms examined, such as the cardiac
fications in the internal structure of sleep,
have afforded a better understanding of the
rhythm, the rhythm of the rectal tempera¬
which vary from individual to individual,
mechanism of human circadian rhythms.
Without synchronizers, without time
ture, of potassium and of the hydroxycor-
and which can be summarized as follows:
"landmarks", whether natural (alternation
of day and night) or artificial (clocks or
watches),
each
individual's
internal
I believe that this desynchronization is an
waking cycle, the proportion of REM sleep
adaptive response by the organism to the
can be accurately forecast since there is a
aperiodicity
This
precise linear correlation between REM
rhythms appear to be, but in fact are not,
brings me to the second group of important
sleep and total sleep, of which it is a func¬
synchronized with the rhythms of local
findings concerning the structure of sleep in
tion. This phenomenon was observed for
times on Earth.
a timeless situation. We were the first to
the first time in man during my experiments
undertake such studies which were carried
underground.
the evolution of
out in 1966. Under a forty-eight-hour sleep¬
the sleeping/waking cycle and of other phys¬
iological functions (such as temperature
and cardiac rhythms), and the internal
ing/waking cycle the human organism the¬
When the period of continuous waking
activity doubles (rising from 16 to 34 or 36
oretically builds up a sleep deficiency or
hours), total sleeping time does not double.
structure of sleep itself, which lies within
debt. The question then arises as to which of
the major stages of sleep (see below) is
about one to ten to the length of waking
the field of neurophysiology.
reduced to compensate for the abnormal
activity.
The most important findings concern two
distinct fields of interest
ticosteroid hormones.
of
the
Whatever the duration of the sleeping/
environment.
However, REM sleep increases in a ratio of
With regard to the sleeping/waking cycle,
(thirty-six-hour) period of waking activity.
The change from a circadian to a forty-
all the long-term (two to six months) experi¬
Progress in this field of research was only
eight-hour sleeping/waking rhythm does
ments I carried out between 1962 and 1972
made possible by underground, atemporal
experiments. Previous experiments on
not affect the period (some 90 minutes) of
seem to point in the direction of a lengthen¬
REM sleep, which remains stable.
ing of the cycle, that is to say, a lengthening
of the interval between two waking periods
sleep had been carried out within the con¬
To conclude this brief survey of the time
text of local time and of a circadian (twenty-
factor in human adaptation, it should be
and two sleeping periods. This has been
four-hour) sleeping/waking cycle.
Con¬
recognized that it is an imperative necessity
confirmed by the experiments carried out
sequently, the natural variations in the vari¬
for ever more penetrating studies to be car¬
by all the other research teams (mainly Ger¬
ous stages of which sleep consists could only
ried out on the desynchronization of circa¬
man, British and American) who have
be very limited. The relative proportions of
dian rhythms in order to increase man's vig¬
worked on this problem, even though these
what is known as REM (Rapid Eye Move¬
ilance and operational capacities. The study
were of
month).
ment) sleep and the four other stages of
of the desynchronization of the biological
sleep could only vary minimally around the
clock
Although those who have written on this
mean average, which itself varied according
unavoidable
subject seem to be agreed on a statistical
to the individual concerned and the time of
fatigue in many situations in modern life
average for the sleeping/waking cycle of
the year.
night work (total inversion of the cycle),
work in revolving shifts (continuous and
shorter
duration
(about
one
is
all
the
more
essential
desynchronization
in
that
creates
around twenty-five hours, this has little sig¬
However, the spontaneous changes in
nificance with regard to the individual. My
periodicity of the sleeping/waking cycle
long-term experiments have brought out
(cycles of 12, 24, 26, 28, 36, 48, 60 and even
prolonged desynchronization), east/west
and west/east travel (involving almost con¬
clearly the multi-faceted nature of a particu¬
72 hours) occurring within the framework
tinuous desynchronization for certain per¬
lar rhythm and its unreproducibility over a
of my "out of time", aperiodic experiments
sonnel), life around airports and other sites
given period of time. This has been demon¬
revealed the natural evolution of the time
with high sound levels, work in exceptional
strated in spectacular fashion by the fact
surroundings (missile silos, tanks, sub¬
that whereas for some individuals the sleep¬
ing/waking cycle changes within a few days
marine-spotting aircraft, nuclear submar¬
from
(thirty-four to thirty-six hours of continuous
Finally, when the organism is syn¬
chronized (that is to say, when it is subject
waking activity and fourteen to twelve
to the normal circadian rhythm of twenty-
twenty-four
to
forty-eight
hours
ines, spacecraft and space laboratories).
hours of sleep), for others this may not hap¬
four hours), the effect of many medicines
pen for several months. A comparison
varies according to the time of day that they
between my 1962 experiment (when I was
are taken. Consequently, any change in the
isolated on the underground glacier at
periodicity of the sleeping/waking cycle
Scarasson in France from 16 July to 17 Sep¬
tember) and my second experiment in 1972
(resulting, for example, from an east/west
or west/east jet flight) or of the organism's
(205 days alone in Midnight Cave, Texas)
other rhythms, could have repercussions on
shows clearly the unreproducibility of the
the action of the medicine, altering or even
sleeping/waking cycle.
reversing its therapeutic effect.
A significant outcome of this
spon¬
taneous change from a twenty-four-hour to
a forty-eight-hour cycle is that for just a
third more sleep than is normal under
ordinary conditions of life it is possible to
MICHEL SIFFRE, French speleologist, devised
and carried out the first major experiments in
Before descending into Midnight Cave,
where he remained alone, cut off from
the solar day, for 205 days in 1972, the
French speleologist Michel Siffre mea¬
sures his respiration rate in the surface
laboratory.
voluntary human confinement. These experi¬
ments, effected in caves in France and the
United States, produced new information relat¬
ing to biological rhythms, psychological time,
sleep and dreams. He is the author of some 50
scientific papers, 8 books and 5 films.
15
o
©
The desert as a way of life
by Hamidou A. Sidikou
TO survive in a harsh world man has
the Air massif and to the north and north¬
Berber peoples living in Mali, Niger and
no option but to adapt to the
other Saharan countries, the Tuareg have
of his environment. In doing so he must
east by high plateaux whose southern lim¬
its are marked by impressive cliffs, itself
covers more than 350,000 square kilo¬
develop
metres.
physical and climatic conditions
strategies
which
are
often
reflected in salient features of his culture
of factors related to rainfall, atmospheric
The peoples of Niger, and especially
the Tuareg, the Tubu, the Kanuri, the
humidity and seasonal temperature vari¬
ations normally gives rise to four distinct
Guézébida and the Arabs who live in the
seasons of varying length.
the desert and its
borderlands.
In
the
southern parts of the region, nomadic
herding over vast areas is a way of life
conditioned by the arid climate and scar¬
city of water and grassland. Above, a
Tuareg of Niger and his camel.
difficult conditions that prevail in the arid
The rainy season, which lasts from
tan, brings dry mists which are liable to be
and semi-arid regions of the country, are
July-August to September, is short and
transformed into violent sandstorms, and
no exception to this universal rule. Indi¬
temperatures fall below zero at night.
vidually and collectively, their way of life
irregular. When it does rain, the pre¬
cipitation is often slight, but sudden vio¬
is influenced, if not determined, by the
lent storms are a threat to those whose
extends from March to June or July. This
Finally, there is a hot dry season which
need to adapt to the rigours of a climate in
houses are made of low-quality earth con¬
is the season of very great heat, with tem¬
which the dominant factors are wide tem¬
taining a large proportion of salts which
peratures reaching 45CC or more.
perature variations, their duration and
dissolve rapidly in the wet.
From the end of September to the end
The maximum daily temperature
range which is generally experienced at
the beginning and end of the dry season
intensity.
Over two-thirds of Niger's total area of
of October there is a short intermediate
1,267,000 square kilometres consists of
season characterized by both a high
may be as great as 20°C, while the range
desert
between the absolute minimum and max¬
this vast expanse, the Ténéré Desert,
atmospheric humidity level and very high
temperatures. This is followed by a dry,
cold season lasting from November to
bounded to the west and north-west by
March when an east wind, the Harmat-
and
semi-desert
zones
situated
between latitudes 15° and 23° North. Of
16
In these climatic zones, a combination
and society.
created an original civilization adapted to
imum
temperatures
may even
reach
40°C, if not more. An extraordinary
capacity for adaptation is required of
peoples subject to such rigorous climatic
conditions. This adaptation is reflected in
every aspect of their lives. The strategies
they adopt are in many cases indissocia¬
ble from the organization of society and
from housing, clothing and diet.
In this setting, human activity is strictly
ruled by the existence of watering places.
Because they are so rare, they have great
economic value and are decisive factors
in the
determination of social status.
Three branches of human activity
stock-raising, agriculture and manual
labour appear to be directly deter¬
mined by the harsh climatic conditions.
Stock-raising activities not only fulfil
economic requirements but also meet the
need to adapt to the climate with its great
variations of temperature. Camels and
cattle are the main species raised, pri¬
marily for the production of milk which is
the basic element of the diet. Since cam¬
els are more hardy than cattle, they can
be raised in wide open rangelands and are
able to adapt more easily to variations in
soil composition and grazing vegetation.
The available quantity of milk, which
serves as both food and drink, varies from
season to season, and this is why two com¬
plementary species are chosen for its pro¬
duction. Thus camel's milk, which is
available in adequate quantities during
the hot, dry season, is appreciated both
for its very rich vitamin content and for its
low fat content, characteristics which are
thought to increase endurance and resis¬
tance to hunger. It is also said to have
remarkably beneficial effects on eye¬
sight. The absence or very low proportion
of visually handicapped people among
populations whose diet is based on cam¬
el's milk may be partly due to its high
mineral content.
Camel-herders also engage in transSaharan trading. One reason for this is
the
need
to
reconcile
the
differing
demands of life in complementary ecolo¬
gical zones. Until it declined following
successive droughts which decimated the
herds and destroyed the vegetation on
which they depended for grazing, the car¬
avan trade, in which tens of thousands of
camels were still involved only a few years
ago, was of more than just economic sig¬
nificance. It was one of many responses
to the particular environmental condi¬
tions and perpetuated a whole way of life
through a wide-ranging network of social
relationships.
Knowledge of the location of watering
places is a key factor in this way of life in
areas where the water supply is a matter
of fundamental and permanent concern.
Agricultural activity is thus limited to the
area around oases where a permanent
supply of water is available. Date-grow¬
ing is the mainstay of this irrigation agri¬
culture adapted to the seasons. Dates,
An Inhabitant of Bilma, a large town in
Niger, carries loaves of household salt for
family consumption.
©
s
£
17
which are an important item of trade with
nisms for adapting to the variations in
Finding, transporting and storing water is
the regions to the south, are a source of
temperature.
a
Dress is another important indication
food, according to their quality, for both
man and beast.
of adaptation to the environment. The
Manual labour is primarily concerned
wearing of the veil and the turban are not
with the exploitation of salt and natron.
only of social significance (attainment of
The latter, a hydrous sodium carbonate,
adult status, for example), they also serve
is an essential element in animal feed
to protect the head, and in particular the
since it meets the animals' salt require¬
eyes, nose and ears against the effects of
ments
low temperatures, the stinging blast of
and
also
rids
them
of
major
preoccupation
for
Saharan
nomads. Right, women of Niger carry
water in gourds, an indication that they
belong to a semi-sedentary village (since
caravaners use water containers made of
goatskin).
intestinal parasites, thus boosting their
hot or cold winds and sandstorms. The
During the hot, dry season, houses
milk production.
constructed of date-palm leaves come
mental conditions, which always under¬
wearing of voluminous clothing, usually
made of cotton , is a form of adaptation to
high temperatures.
lies human behaviour, is also apparent in
Finally, housing, its conception, the
the unusual, some would say immoder¬
materials used in its construction, and the
ate, consumption of tea. A beverage that
use made of it in relation to the seasons, is
adjoins the entrance; there is a room for
both quenches thirst and staves off hun¬
another important element in adaptation
the women and children, a store-room for
ger, tea is served ceremonially. It plays a
part in creating physiological mecha-
to
food or for animal fodder, a kitchen, and
The concern to adapt diet to environ¬
Saltpans at Tegguidan-n'Tessoum, Niger.
Salt is produced by solar evaporation of
the brine in each pan. Workers' legs are
covered with ulcers caused by walking
knee deep in the brine.
climatic
conditions.
In
the
Kawar
region of Niger, for example, where, in
into their own. Cool, airy and well ventil¬
ated, they are divided into rooms desig¬
nated for different functions.
A room
reserved for the head of the household
a living-room in which meals are taken .
past centuries, fortified villages were con¬
Tents, which are made of skins or of
structed for security reasons, four main
rush matting, vary in size according to the
types of dwellings are found.
means of the occupants. They are always
Stone houses, the last relics of those
put up on a north-south axis with one or
troubled times, are used during the dry,
two openings on the east and west sides to
cold season because they offer better
allow air to circulate and the rays of the
protection against sharp drops in tem¬
sun to enter. Tents are all-the-year-round
perature.
dwellings which can easily be dismantled.
©
L ÜL
4
ri^f
-*-
They are set up on top of dunes during the
hot season and in spots protected by
vegetation among the dunes in the cold
season. The tent is the perfect example
of a dwelling fully adapted to the climate.
Straw huts, whose dimensions vary
according to economic considerations
and to the availability of straw, itself
dependent upon rainfall, are used both as
temporary shelters and permanent dwell¬
ings. In the latter case they are used
mainly during the rainy season and in the
hot season since they offer the best pro¬
tection against rain and great heat.
These
are
some
of the
strategies
developed by the peoples of Niger who
live in very hot desert areas. Their pur¬
pose is to provide a minimum of comfort
by adaptation to temperature conditions
which remain, throughout the year, a
matter of primordial concern.
HAMIDOUAROUNASIDIKOU.oM/ger./sconsultant to several international organizations,
including Unesco, and permanent secretary of
the Committee responsible for developing a
Rural Code for Niger. A geographer, he taught at
the Faculty of Letters, Human Sciences and
Pedagogy of the University of Niamey (19741981), before directing (1981-1985) the Univer¬
sity's Institute of Research in the Human Sci¬
ences.
Loading a camel with its cargo of salt in the
sandy plain of Ténéré. Salt is a vital com¬
modity for man and animal in the desert,
where it is still transported by camel car¬
avans and serves as a form of currency.
19
Hunter-gatherers
of the tropical forest
by Laurentiu Palade
Between 100,000 and 200,000 Pygmies live
in equatorial Africa, scattered through the
forest which extends from the Atlantic
Ocean to the great lakes of the east.
Remarkably well adapted to conditions in
the tropical forest, they live by hunting and
gathering. Below, a Uganda Pygmy hunter
with animal hides for use as drumskins.
Beating drums is a form of communication
between isolated groups in the forest.
TROPICAL forests form a green
band
around
the
Equator,
extending roughly 10° North and
South. This means that they account for
only a small proportion, about 8 per cent,
of the Earth's land surface. Yet they com¬
prise almost half of all growing wood on
the face of the planet, and harbour at
least two-fifths of Earth's plant and ani¬
mal species, a genetic resource of increas¬
tory and productive functions that are
ing importance to humanity through agri¬
culture, medicine and industry. They also
comprise the most complex and diverse
ecosystems on Earth, which fulfil regula
over 4,000 years are found on ancient
essential
to
man
and
to
his
natural
environment.
The question of human adaptation to
conditions in tropical rain forests has
been examined in a number of scientific
studies on groups of hunter-gatherers
such as the Pygmies. The existence of
such peoples is recorded in ancient times.
Representations of them dating back
Egyptian bas-reliefs from the tombs of
pharaohs of the Vth Dynasty. They are
mentioned by Homer in the Iliad as well
m
w*£
Source: Nature and Resources, Unesco, 1 983
Moist, dense, broad-leaf evergreen forests with many epiphytes ("air
plants" growing non-parasitically on trees and other plants and deriving
their nutrients from the air)
i/y- ~:
Drier, more open, partially deciduous forests with relatively few
«¿xiia
epiphytes
World distribution of tropical forests
as by Herodotus and Aristotle. Yet while
abandoned cultivated plots. Game con¬
effort, their pulmonary capacity and their
other civilizations have completely disap¬
sists mainly of small antelope. At the
cardiac rhythm are above average. They
peared, the Pygmies, living in perfect har¬
same time, the inhabitants of the forest
show no signs of protein deficiency or
mony with their environment, have sur¬
are under constant threat from insects,
malnutrition.
vived the ages.
parasites and arboviruses, a group of
Their small stature gives the hunter-
Pygmies are to be found in most of the
viruses that develop in anthropods such
gatherers of the tropical forest a definite
world's tropical forests. They are fairly
numerous; the Ituri Pygmies of Africa,
for example, number some tens of thou¬
sands. Operating in small groups of from
five to thirty-four individuals, they live a
as mosquitoes and are then transmitted
advantage in the form of a relatively high
by bites to vertebrate hosts.
work capacity under difficult climatic
One indication of adaptation to forest
conditions. A well organized routine,
life is to be seen in the fact that forest-
with major activities carried out early in
the morning or late in the evening, helps
dwelling elephant and buffalo are, in gen¬
semi-nomadic life adapted to conditions
eral, half the size of their counterparts
them to avoid excessive perspiration. In
in the rain forest which are as extreme
living in the savannah. The forest people,
fact,
and pitiless as those of the cold and inhos¬
too, weigh less and are shorter than those
atmosphere, they sweat very little. In
pitable Polar regions.
despite
the
dampness
of
the
who live in open country. A comparative
general, they maintain a satisfactory state
Light penetration of the forest canopy
study undertaken in Africa has shown
of health and, among those who live in a
is minimal. Virtually all ultraviolet rays
that forest-dwellers weigh, on average,
are screened out. The accumulated heat
39.8 kilograms and are 1.44 metres tall, as
and
compared with 62.5 kilograms and 1.69
humidity is
so
intense that the
atmosphere is like that of a greenhouse.
metres for inhabitants of the savannah. In
The average temperature is 28°C, with
comparison
variations no greater than from 3°C to
groups, their oxygen consumption during
with
other
population
Pygmies in concert: this man from the
Central African Republic is playing a whis¬
tle cut from a branch of the papaya tree.
9°C. Average relative humidity is 95 per
cent at night and 60 to 70 per cent during
the day, with only slight seasonal varia¬
tions. Winds are also very light, except
when there is a tornado, and the air is
extremely rich in carbon dioxide and is
laden with scent elements, formic vapour
amd microscopic particles of hair, scales
and fibres. Rapid breakdown and trans¬
formation of organic matter is ensured by
micro-organisms, which teem in the heat
and humidity.
The level of évapotranspiration is very
high
three times the average for the
planet as a whole. The forest floor is per¬
manently moist and a protective layer of
branches and leaves is essential should
you wish to lie on it. Ants and termites
abound. Like the flora, the fauna of the
forest is rich and varied. Animal life is
"stratified", with different species living
at different levels. Monkeys and birds live
in the higher levels of the canopy where
conditions are easier and food is more
abundant.
The tropical forest is not very generous
to the people and the larger animals who
live at ground level. Food is difficult to
find and they sometimes have to be con¬
tent with fruit that has been dropped by
monkeys. At night, the large predators
venture out to the open savannah at the
edge of the forest and to river banks and
21
forest ecosystem which is still intact,
there is a very low incidence of malaria.
In order to adapt to the constraints of a
a
Yanomamo
Indian.
The
Yanomamo, with a population of over
15,000, live in the luxuriant tropical forests
of Venezuela and Brazil.
padding for their shields from raffia fibre.
the Pygmies, like nomads, have had to
From the hide of the game they kill they
make belts. They carve traps from roots
and make wicker griddles which, placed
reduce their material possessions to a
over a fire, enable them to smoke the
minimum. Those they do have are easily
replaced. All they need is a stick to dig
leaves.
life of hunting and gathering in the forest,
Below,
They make strings for their bows and
flesh of big game. Food is cooked in large
with and a leaf to drink from; a hollow
Hunting, upon which the survival of
stem provi Jes a pipe for them to smoke.
As a general rule they manage without
the group depends, is traditionally a male
preserve. It has had a profound effect on
anything that is too heavy to carry, such
both the individual and the collective
as pots and pans and looms. The forest
mentality and has forged family and
provides
and
social structures. The forest is a foster-
branches with which to built their huts,
mother who must be respected. It is tac¬
make their beds and clothe themselves.
itly accepted that no animal should be
them
with
liana,
bark
killed or tree felled unnecessarily. Game
is usually caught with a net made of inter¬
woven liana and its meat is shared out in
accordance with a strict ritual. Gather¬
ing, which is left to the women, is a com¬
plementary source of food. The produce
of the forest
rooms
fruit, roots, leaves, mush¬
is abundant.
Certain insects,
such as caterpillars and termites, are
gathered, as is honey. The forest also
provides products for bodily care and the
treatment of wounds, sickness and infir¬
mities.
These forest people know their
environment to perfection. Far from
being overwhelmed by their natural sur¬
roundings, they are well organized and
lead an active social life festivities, pal¬
avers, dancing and have a culture rich
in tradition, myth and legend.
The uncontrolled clearing of tropical
forests for agriculture presents the forest-
dwellers with problems of adaptation to
their changing environment and may
expose them to health and other risks.
The pathogenic agents found in a forest
environment attack man more readily in
a cleared area than in an intact forest,
where they concentrate on the primate
and rodent population. An increase in
the incidence of malaria, cardio-vascular
troubles,
physiological
ailments
and
nutritional imbalances has in fact been
noted.
The exploitation of forest regions con¬
stitutes an indispensable economic
development resource in many tropical
countries. In order to achieve a judicious
strategy which respects the natural bal¬
ance, Unesco's Man and the Biosphere
Programme (MAB) is currently engaged
on a project to study the ecological effects
of increasing human activity on tropical
and subtropical forest ecosystems. It is
hoped that this project will help to answer
the many scientific questions raised by
land use planning in the tropics.
LAURENTIU PALADE is a staff member of
Unesco's Division of Ecological Sciences. After
following an academic and scientific career in
Romania, he spent several years in the humid
tropics engaged on a Unesco/World Bank pro¬
ject. The author of over a hundred scientific stud¬
ies, in 1983 he was awarded the European
Environment Prize by the Goethe Foundation,
Basel, Switzerland.
22
The sea within us
by Dan Behrman
Traditional method of tuna fishing off the
coast of southern Spain. As the shoals of
fish move from the warm Mediterranean
waters towards the Atlantic the fishermen
trap them in large nets stretched between
their small wooden boats. The giant fish
are then hooked and pulled aboard.
THE sea flows inside us
literally.
Peninsulas
became
islands,
the
land
same: 3.5 per cent. Like all other forms of
bridge between Asia and North America
was swamped and early coastal settle¬
ments drowned on what is today's conti¬
life, we emerged from the sea, yet despite
nental shelf. The story of the Flood is
such links, our attitude towards it is
found in cultures worldwide; perhaps dim
ambivalent. The sea inspires awe and
memories of the encroaching sea gave
fear, it is so unlike the landmasses that we
birth to the legend of Atlantis sinking
inhabit.
beneath the waters.
In our blood as in seawater, the
proportion of dissolved salts is the
The vastness and solitude we
now associate with outer space have
always been present at sea. Even close to
land, the surf waits to take its toll.
With the ending of the Ice Age 10,000
years ago and the subsequent rise in sea
level, peoples everywhere found them¬
selves driven back by the invading waters.
But the ocean gave life as well as taking
life away. Fish were plentiful and easy
game; archaeological finds along the
western coast of Europe include Stone
Age bone fish hooks big enough to catch
deep sea fish. The seine nets, the trolling
gear and the traps devised by the Inuit
23
©
mittens, for if he slipped, he was a gone
impact was one of menace: a mechanical
man. All the boats were hoisted in on
desert of indefinable purpose imposed
deck and there was nothing to be lowered
upon the sea's own emptiness, and with
for him. We had need of every finger God
forms and shapes that had no reassuring
familiarity; it was filled with wind signs,
not those of masts and rigging but of
abandoned structures upon a plain, and
had given us. . . . Frequently we were obli¬
ged to leave off altogether and take to
beating our hands upon the sail, to keep
them from freezing." Such Olympic
exploits were part of the daily business of
moving passengers and cargo.
Until the end of sail, a seaman's life was
of the sea god Poseidon. In Greek mythol¬
ogy, Triton lived with his parents in a
golden palace in the depths of the sea.
people of the Arctic in a similar culture
are still used by fishermen today, with
little change in their basic principles.
Attitudes to the sea have been divided
since the earliest times. Some sailed for
trading purposes, endeavouring to spend
as little time on the water as possible and,
at first, to stay within sight of land. They
belonged to the civilizations huddled
around the Mediterranean. Then there
were the sea-peoples, the dwellers on the
ocean, who sought the sea, who returned
to its womb.
They did not shrink from the sea but
embarked upon it in frail coracles or out¬
rigger canoes. And the sea repaid them.
Its waves could be read to indicate the
proximity of land, in the wake of an island
breasting the tidal stream. The skies told
their story by day and by night; there
were nearly always clouds over islands
and mariners set their course by the stars.
Even birds could show in which direction
the land lay, and surf breaking on rocks
over the horizon threw up a telltale haze.
Physical conditions on shipboard in the
days of sail were extremely hard. No one
has described a seaman's life better than
Richard Dana in his narrative Two Years
Before the Mast, published in 1840 and
still a classic. Dana signed on as an ordi¬
nary seaman aboard a vessel bound for
California
around
Cape
Horn,
an
unheard-of move for a university gradu¬
ate of good family. In a storm off Cape
Horn, the sailors went aloft to take in the
mainsail : "We had to fist the sail with bare
hands. No one could trust himself to use
24
sailing under remote control.
There are still those who must seek
the sea fishermen, oceanographers,
divers and they are of a different breed.
still be heard, but can it be answered?
The attitudes of small-scale fishermen
Hardly, on the automated tankers and
sel: "One felt the arid metal acreage
have not changed over time. They still
live in small egalitarian communities
where growth is not a goal and informa¬
tion is shared in co-operative net¬
spreading invisibly all around, and its
works.
author oiSupership, describes such a ves¬
apparatus for divers, named after the son
cursor of unmanned ships of the future,
now? Kipling's "call of the off-shore wind
and the voice of the deep-sea rain" can
death.
cargo carriers of today. Noel Mostert,
Above, the "Triton", an early breathing
Mostert perhaps saw his vessel as a pre¬
And
a constant flirtation with
*gM
there was no comfort even from the sea."
Right, two women aquanauts, a botanist
and a zoologist, carry out an experiment,
on fish behaviour as part of a U.S. marine
research programme on the sea bed. The
scientists lived for two weeks in a 4-room
habitat at a depth of 15 m in the Caribbean
near St. John Island (Virgin Islands).
Left, a diver about to take the plunge from
HMS Tedworth, protected by the cumber¬
some type of diving suit used in the
1930s.
Sociologists observe that fishermen
times a voyage. The captain, his big
more time on the bottom but bringing in
tend to defer their pleasures and ritualize
tousled head stuck out of the port window
the danger of the bends, that painful and
their risk-taking behaviour. Risks there
of the bridge, made a special effort to
keep the wire within my easy reach. With
the help of propellers and rudder, he
potentially fatal condition engendered by
nitrogen bubbles forming in the blood.
are: the death rate of fishermen is seven
times higher than the average. And they
are a vanishing species, as booming
Now that man was moving in this totally
could move his 800 tons of ship literally by
the inch in the empty grey water.
to the lack of oxygen, to the cold, to the
Not all fishing fits these descriptions.
I thought of the oceanographer on this
voyage, Svend Malmberg, reading the
distortion of vision by water pressure on
the eyes.
Big trawlers are more like factories, as
thermometers on his Nansen bottles to an
He did this with the hard-hat diver's
William W. Warner points out in Distant
accuracy of a hundredth of a degree,
suit invented in 1819 by a German engi¬
leisure
activities
encroach
on
their
beaches and shellfish beds.
alien environment he had to adapt to it,
Water: "Not since the great age of whal¬
when I came across an account of the
neer, Augustus Siebe, that still left the
ing have men stayed at sea for such
contrasting life on board an oil rig 200
diver attached to the surface.
protracted periods . . . and no whaler ever,
kilometres out in the Gulf of Mexico with
1942, the Frenchmen Jacques Cousteau
suffered the continuous and exhausting
four 2,000-horsepower generators roar¬
ing night and day. Crew members worked
and Emile Gagnan came up with their
work schedules of the modern distant
water fisherman." Despite their size,
storms,
seven 12-hour shifts on this platform,
then hoped that bad weather would not
especially in winter when they were top
hold up their relief. Drilling for oil is
heavy with ice. Adoption of 200-mile eco¬
probably the least nautical of all occupa¬
tions pursued at sea, but it is not neces¬
these
ships
fell
victim
to
nomic zones shut them out of rich shelf
waters
and
Warner
rendered
sees
a
them
future
with
obsolete.
smaller
medium-range ships such as "autoliners"
that
can
handle
15,000-hook
sarily the safest. Oil rigs cannot run from
a Gulf hurricane or a North Sea storm.
Divers, too, are essential to these cities
lines
on the sea when it comes to finishing up a
wellhead or troubleshooting on the bot¬
Oceanographers are another variant of
tom. One of the oldest of the maritime
the human species found only at sea: not
trades is here put to good use by one of
the newest. Divers were going down for
pearls in the Babylonia of 4,500 years
ago, using the breathhold technique that
now allows them to stay under for 4 min¬
entirely by machine.
only must they survive aboard small ships
but they must do scientific work as well,
collecting data with precision. I once
went out on an Icelandic research ship
and took my turn taking Nansen bottles'
this series of movements that had to be
utes at depths of up to 45 metres (the
record for such diving is 90 metres).
In the nineteenth century, diving suits
fed by compressed air from the surface
repeated tens of times a day, hundreds of
were invented, allowing divers to spend
off a wire as they were winched in. All
waste motion had been eliminated from
Then
in
independent breathing device, the Aqua¬
lung, and the scuba2 diver was born. Here
was a new animal, free-swimming into the
depths.
It was
soon
apparent
that
many
psychological and physiological adjust¬
ments had to be made. Nitrogen under
pressure in the divers' air led to "rapture
of the deep" or the so-called "martini
effect" (each 15 metres of depth equals
one dry martini). An oxygen-helium
breathing mixture took care of this but
created new problems: a high-pitched
"Donald
Duck"
voice
and
extreme
cold.
Diving tables were developed to show
1. Metal water-sampling bottle equipped with closing
valves and a mercury thermometer to record tempera¬
ture at specified depths.
2. Scuba = self-contained underwater breathing
apparatus
25
how
much
time
was
needed
in
decompression for a stay at a given depth.
Once a diver is "saturated" at his depth,
the decompression time is the same no
matter how long he stays there. Under¬
standing of this principle led to the first
attempts to colonize the sea floor, the
for sullenness, a very neat man may be
accused of being fussy. ... There were
some problems aboard the Chernomor
during the first few weeks but soon the
explorers, just as there were navigators
on the surface. Perhaps they will benefit
the other members and no new problems
from that ultimate transformation, the
arose."
invention of an artificial gill through
There have been no recent experi¬
1970s. Unlike man-in-space missions that
ments in underwater living. Instead of
demand rocketry within the capability of
remaining on the bottom, divers can now
only
be brought to the surface in personnel
few
nations,
man-in-the-sea
deck chambers until they go down again.
But there will always be underwater
crew came to appreciate the abilities of
underwater habitats of the 1960s and the
a
transfer capsules and live in pressurized
which the diver's blood will flow and take
up oxygen from the water, as fish do.
Then the age of the sea people will have
truly begun.
experiments could be carried out by a
number of countries. Among them were
France, the United States, the Soviet
Union,
the
German
Democratic
Republic, the Federal Republic of Ger¬
many, Israel, Poland, Czechoslovakia
and Canada (which set some kind of a
record
with
an
"underwater
Volks¬
wagen" costing only $15,000).
The, French were first to develop a
manned underwater station, with Cousteau's Conshelf, then the U.S. Sealab
was constructed. All sorts of problems
arose in the habitats. Humidity gave rise
to infections, particularly in the ear, and
wounds were slow to heal. Cooking could
be tricky
dough just will not rise in a
high pressure environment and if a can of
fizzy drink is opened the bubbles go
inward. (Some habitats solved all this by
having their meals sent down from the
surface in containers.) Cuisine may not
be all that important, since many aquanauts reported a loss of their sense of
smell and taste.
It has been found that during the first
five days of habitat living, people show
signs of stress which then go away only to
reappear after fifteen days. Life under
the sea is shipboard or submarine life car¬
ried to an extreme. Like space travellers,
aquanauts occasionally resented "ground
control" at the surface with its constant
monitoring of their behaviour. The tele¬
phone could be a hated intruder, con¬
stantly interrupting their routine.
And
people
had
to
get
on
well
together. In one habitat, scientists at first
found themselves at odds with seamen
doing simulated salvage work, but they
ironed out their differences. Everyone
would probably agree with the Soviets
aboard Chernomor, who in 1971 reported
in
the
newspaper
Izvestiya:
"The
psychological problems caused by the
confinement of several men together for
long periods of time was of great concern
before the start of the programme . Under
these conditions it is well-known that
men may tend to find fault with each
other, that a man's silence may be taken
DAN BEHRMAN is an American author and
journalist who frequently contributed to the
Unesco Courier during his many years as a
Unesco science writer. He is the author of a
number of books on oceanography including
The New World of the Oceans (Little, Brown and
Co., Boston) and Assault on the Largest
Unknown, The' International Indian Ocean Expe¬
dition 1959-65 (Unesco, 1981).
26
An engineer makes a tour of inspection
inside one of the legs of a natural gas drill¬
ing rig in the North Sea.
Stress in the modern world
by Lennart Levi
ACCORDING to United Nations
The Bill strongly advocates what is
statistics, the world's urban pop¬
called a "holistic approach" to such prob¬
community, above, can be a way of over¬
ulation has doubled since 1950
and may double again by the end of this
lems and attempts to solve them, mean¬
ing that "people's symptoms and ill¬
coming the social isolation which causes
widespread distress in modern cities.
century, by which time three-quarters of
nesses, their causes and consequences,
the population of developed countries
and one-third to one half of the popula¬
tion in developing countries will be living
in cities. Current estimates suggest that as
a result of both population growth and
migration, the number of poor people
clustered in slums and shanty-towns is
increasing annually by 10 to 15 per cent.
Conditions in these places are appalling.
The result is tension, depression and vio¬
lence superimposed on physical hardship
are appraised in both a medical and a
psychological and social perspective".
Bearing this in mind, let us look at some
of these possible "causes" in the human
five, most of them because of lack of
environment, including some of those in
basic hygiene. In many African and some
Latin American countries, plagued by
hunger and shortage of water, this means
the world's major cities in developing and
developed countries.
According to recent United Nations
and World Bank statistics, half of the
countries of Africa and southeast Asia,
According to the Athenian statesman
including four of the five largest, with a
combined population of almost 2,000 mil¬
lion, have an annual median per capita
Pericles (495-429 BC), "health is that
income of less than $300. This mass pov¬
state of moral, mental and physical well-
erty leads to hunger, undernourishment
being which enables man to face any crisis
in life with the utmost facility and grace".
This ancient, definition, highlights two
critically important points: firstly that
and malnutrition for vast legions of chil¬
dren in the developing world.
health concerns man's interaction with
physical and mental disabilities. When
and a constant threat of disease.
his living conditions, and secondly that he
may lose his capacity to adapt if the life
crisis is severe enough.
Much more recently, this insight has
they reach sexual maturity, therefore , it is
even more disabled, and even less com¬
(1984-1985), which declares that "Our
tion of children. Thus a descending spiral
is created causing morbidity, death and
associated with our relationships
lack of relationships
beings."
and
with our fellow
The Food and Agriculture Organiza¬
tion of the United Nations (FAO) and the
World Bank report that at least 430 mil¬
lion human beings are malnourished or
undernourished. In the developing coun¬
tries about 60 per cent of the population
has no access to safe potable water; 75 per
even more difficult for them to plan their
families and care for their children, who
then become even more malnourished,
petent to care for the following genera¬
living environments that are physically
and socially deficient, unemployment
and the threat of unemployment, abuse
of alcbhol and narcotics, consumption of
tobacco and unsuitable dietary habits, as
well as psychological and social strains
almost every other child.
In the worst of cases, children die. In
measure, the Public Health Service Bill
form of, for instance, work, traffic and
potable water, adequate nutrition and
the "best" of cases, they grow up with
been echoed in the terms of a Swedish
health is determined in large measure by
our living conditions and lifestyle. ..."
The Bill goes on to state that "The health
risks in contemporary society take the
Participation in group activities within the
suffering for hundreds of millions more in
the poor countries of the world.
According to recent UNICEF reports,
in the developing countries 15 million
children die annually before the age of
Poster, right, gives a telephone number of
Switzerland's "Helping Hand" service,
which offers those in despair the solace of
"someone to talk to". The Swiss post
office co-operates by providing the tele¬
phone call free.
27
cent has no access to basic hygiene
simple latrines, ways to dispose of house¬
hold rubbish, and personal and food
hygiene.
Only 19 per cent of the population of
Above left, an oral health clinic in Thailand. In the developing countries the provision ot
medical treatment, vaccination and safe drinking water is an essential part of a global
approach to environmental health risks which also takes into account other aspects of
the "human ecosystem " such as malnutrition resulting from mass poverty. The Rheuma¬
tic Heart Centre, established at the foot of the Great Pyramids at Giza, above right, came
into being thanks to the initiative of a Cairo voluntary association.
these countries has access to housing of
acceptable quality. Four out of every five
households live in miserable huts in the
countryside or in shacks made of burlap,
cardboard and sheet metal in the slums of
the large cities. Public health services are
available to less than 15 per cent of the
rural and urban poor.
Such conditions cause acute physical
and psychological and social stress by
creating threats to survival, health and
well-being,
to
self-esteem,
to
close
attachment to others, to the sense of
belonging to
a
valued group.
These
threats can in turn provoke potentially
pathogenic reactions leading to further
increases
in
sickness
and
mortality
rates.
But causes of psychological and social
stress are also extremely common in
developed countries, in all types of social
and economic systems. In the United
States, for example, 13.7 million children
have unemployed or absent fathers. One
out of three white and three out of five
black children will experience marital dis¬
ruption before reaching the age of six¬
teen.
Most of them will grow up in
women-headed families, which are six
times as likely to be below the poverty
level. In 1978, 17 per cent of all children
in the United States under eighteen (11
per cent white, 27 per cent Hispanic, 41
per cent black) lived in poverty, i.e. in
conditions of run-down housing, heavy
traffic, overcrowding, risk of contagion,
accidents, injuries, pollution, violence,
abuse and neglect.
When people are exposed to stress-
inducing
conditions
of
this
kind
whether it is a question of lack of control
over their lives, combined with excessive
demands, unsatisfied needs, expectations
that cannot be fulfilled, overstimulation,
or role conflicts
most of them experi¬
ence "dysphoric" reactions such as feel-
28
In the developing world some 15 mil¬
lion children die annually before the
age of 5, mostly because of lack of
safe drinking water, adequate nutri¬
tion and basic hygiene. Left, Niger
has launched a community-oriented
nursing programme to improve
child health care. Below, monitoring
the growth of a toddler at an open-air
clinic in Nicaragua.
*
©
£
ings of anxiety, depression, uneasiness,
apathy, alienation and hypochondria.
In Sweden, statistics produced by the
National Board of Health and Welfare
(1978) show that every third four-yearold has mental problems (with symptoms
such as bed-wetting, aggressivity, noctur¬
nal fears). Every third adult suffers from
Air pollution (above) Is only one of many
pressures in modern industrial society
that impose strain on the organism,
adding to the tensions that have always
been part of human life.
Below, for millions of people living in the
slums and squatter settlements of the
great cities of the developing world, life is
primarily a struggle for survival as they
seek to protect themselves from cold,
heat, hunger, disease and dirt. What they
want is decent housing in an environment
which will harm neither their lives nor their
dignity.
malaise, sleep disorders, fatigue, dejec¬
tion or anxiety. Every seventh working
person is mentally exhausted at the end of
the working day. Every other man and
three women out of four will suffer from
pronounced mental decompensation
some time in his or her life up to the age of
sixty. Every tenth man has an alcohol
problem. Two thousand people commit
suicide every year, and 20,000 attempt to
do so (in a population of 8.3 million).
Taken together, these figures mean
that approximately every third or fourth
Swede lives a life in which malaise, anx¬
iety, fatigue or dejection is a common
component. Moreover, the situation did
not improve from 1968 to 1974, in spite of
a considerable increase over this period in
material wealth and social security. This
rather alarming picture assumes a further
dimension when related to the ambitious
goals and very considerable material
means of the Swedish welfare state.
According to studies recently sum¬
marized by the World Health Organiza¬
tion (WHO), there are at least 48 million
drug abusers in the world. But this is only
one example of stress-related pathogenic
behaviour.
Others
include
tobacco
dependence, quoted as the primary cause
of one-third of all cases of cancer, 75 per
cent of chronic bronchitis and 25 per cent
of myocardial infarction in the United
States.
As well as reacting emotionally to the
stresses and strains of modern life and
behaving in potentially disease-provok¬
ing ways, we also react physiologically
with our internal organs. Coping with
stress influences basic physiological reac¬
tions in our central nervous system as well
as our ductless (endocrine) glands. The
biologically active agents of the glands,
29
the hormones, together with nervous
impulses, influence virtually every cell in
the organism. If prolonged, pronounced,
or recurrent, such reactions can eventu¬
ally lead to physical ill health.
A WHO report (1986) also mentions
the high prevalence of somatic symptoms
resulting from psychological and social
distress, i.e. in cases with no ascertaina¬
Solo to the Pole
ble organ pathology, or with complaints
of discomfort disproportionate to the
physical problem. This accounts for from
An interview with Jean-Louis Etienne
30 to 50 per cent of all consultations in
developed countries and for from 15 to 25
per cent of those coming to the attention
of health care personnel in developing
countries the largest single complaint
category in primary care.
Altogether, the resulting conditions
make for extreme and ever greater suffer¬
ing for over one-quarter of mankind. It is
true that people can adapt even to
extreme environmental influences. Yet,
as indicated above, this adaptation takes
its toll in terms of emotional, behavioural
On 11 May 1986, forty-year-old
weeks, or two months, at a temperature of
and/or
Jean-Louis
French
-47°C. For me, to go to the North Pole was a
nutritionist and doctor specializing
dream, just as earlier I had dreamed of
in the care of athletes, reached the
climbing Mount Everest, rounding Cape
physiological
deformation.
Etienne,
a
Although a cause-effect relationship is
difficult to prove in specific cases, circum¬
stantial evidence supports the existence
of such a relationship.
North Pole after a solitary hike last¬
Horn, or sailing round the world. It was also
ing sixty-three days. Wearing cross¬
a human and, above all, a technological
In developed and developing countries
country skis and pulling an ultra¬
alike, governmental action against such
light sledge, he had covered 750
What exactly do you mean by that? What
problems is often of a troubleshooting
kilometres in temperatures as low
equipment did you take with you?
nature; it addresses only one or a few
as -52°C and in winds of up to 100
The North Pole is located in the centre of an
specific problems. It may include the
kilometres an hour. The Unesco
ocean of ice, the Arctic, but it is no skating
provision of medical treatment, vaccina¬
Courier talked to him about his
rink! The terrain is very uneven. The ice is
tion, food shipments, or wells of potable
exploit.
cracked, sheets are superimposed on sheets
or collide and compress to form ridges. You
water. Not infrequently, it takes the form
of acute disaster aid in situations where
disasters are usually chronic. In such
cases, intervention is usually admin¬
istered by one of many specialized agen¬
cies, with no or insufficient co-operation
with other specialized agencies. One
health problem
pollution
say, ill-health caused by
challenge.
can never see the horizon, and your pro¬
What motivated you to undertake your soli¬
gress is constantly hampered by the ice
tary walk to the North Pole? Was it the
which can be completely churned up for
challenge of a great sporting achievement,
kilometres on end. It is rather as if you
or was it the scientific interest of an experi¬
decided to cross Paris in a straight line by
ment designed to measure the limits of
walking across the roof-tops. What is more,
human resistance in an extreme environ¬
this
ment?
extremely
is
only
may therefore be attacked,
It was neither. The fact is that such motives
between the beginning of March, when the
while another, such as poverty-induced
are often advanced to give respectability to
Polar day dawns, and mid-May, when the
undernourishment, is neglected, or vice
a taste for adventure, a love of open spaces
ice-pack begins to break up as summer
versa.
and the pleasures of discovery. There is
approaches. It is a real race against time,
This brief, oversimplified account illus¬
really no need to go such a long way just to
and to travel fast you have to travel light. To
trates the existence of many interacting
and pathogenic factors in the human eco¬
carry out a scientific experiment. It would
equip myself for this undertaking I made
be perfectly possible to set up a cold cham¬
use of materials that have the best low-tem¬
system. If one of its components is influ¬
enced, effects will occur in many of the
others. Consequently, it will probably be
impossible to cope successfully with cur¬
ber right here in Paris and live in it for three
perature performance. With the aid of an
rent and future urban and health prob¬
lems
by
considering in
research,
therapy and/or prevention just one or
two of the components of the total eco¬
system. Success will be more likely if as
many as possible of the critical ones can
be taken into account.
LENNART LEVI, of Sweden, is professor of
psychosocial
medicine
at
the
Karolinska
v¿ií» w
Institutet in Stockholm, where he is chairman of
the Department of Stress Research at the World
Health Organization's Psychosocial Centre. He
is also director of the National Swedish Institute
for Psychosocial Factors and Health (IPM) in
Stockholm. His many publications on stress, .
health and preventive medicine have been trans¬
lated into several languages.'
30
difficult terrain
accessible for about two months of the year,
i ,
K
©I
engineer friend of mine , I perfected a sledge
in the north at 2400 hours, all I had to do to
made of Kevlar, a light but very tough poly¬
find my bearings was to point the hour hand
mer which is being increasingly used in
in the direction of the sun.
aeronautics. The sledge was 2.20 metres
The surface of the ice-floe is rugged. The
blocks of ice fracture, collide against each
other and impact to form walls extending
over several km.
Why did you travel on skis?
long by 60 centimetres wide and weighed 3
kilograms. I managed to get the load down
to 50 kilograms. To keep my bearings on the
ice-pack I carried with me a small Kevlarencased safety-beacon-cum-radio-emitter,
the signal from which was picked up by
satellite and transmitted to a computer at
the
Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales
(National
Space
Studies
Centre)
in
Toulouse, France. Michel Franco, who was
acting as my back-up at our base camp at
Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island in the far
north of Canada, questioned the computer
by telephone every evening and then
informed me of my position. The beaconemitter was powered by lithium batteries
which
are
capable
of
withstanding
extremely low temperatures.
Skis are indispensable. The ice-pack is
fractured and there are crevasses every¬
where, into which it is easy to fall unless you
Did you also draw on the cold weather sur¬
take great care. Skis enable you to cross
vival techniques of the inhabitants of the far
them. In most places the ice-pack is from 2
to 3 metres thick, but where it breaks the
water freezes again forming a very thin skin
of ice. Skis spread your weight over a larger
surface and enable you to walk over very
recently-formed ice. I used nordic cross¬
country skis to the undersides of which I had
stuck synthetic anti-slip skins. In the past,
people used sealskins for this purpose
because of the rigidity of the seal's bodyhair which enables it to climb on ice without
slipping. When, once a fortnight, Michel
Franco brought me fresh supplies by aero¬
plane, he would also fit me out with new
Did you also use a compass?
No. The magnetic pole, to which compass
needles point, is some 1,500 kilometres
from the geographical pole through which
passes the axis of rotation of the Earth, and
it was to this "true" North Pole that I was
heading. Furthermore, compasses are dis¬
oriented by the magnetic fields in this
region. Here the sun is the only guide. I
therefore had a watch made on which the
hour hand made only one complete revolu¬
tion in twenty-four hours. Knowing that the
sun is in the east at 0600 hours, in the south
at 1200 hours, in the west at 1800 hours and
On his expedition to the North Pole Jean-
Louis Etienne took specially designed
lightweight equipment weighing 50 kg,
left. His sledge weighed only 3 kg.
skins.
north? Did you, for example, dress in their
fashion?
Not at all. These people are hunters who
live in encampments, do not travel far and
do not go in for comparable, long-lasting
physical or sporting activities. They are not
interested in the North Pole, where there is
nothing and where life is not possible, and
they have never been there. In this they are
similar to the Nepalese who would not
dream of climbing Everest. As far as dress is
concerned, clothes are now made that are
much warmer and much lighter than tradi¬
tional Eskimo clothing. The clothes I wore
were made of Qualofil, a synthetic fibre
What did you have to eat?
with very good insulating qualities.
Drawing on the recorded experience of pre¬
Your journey lasted sixty-three days. Can
vious polar expeditions, I had concocted
you describe a typical day?
some special food rations. At the beginning
I allowed myself a daily ration of 4,000 calo¬
ries. However, this proved to be insufficient
and I was somewhat hungry, so I stepped up
my daily ration to 5,000 calories. My meals
for a day were vacuum-packed in bags of
about 1 kilogram. As this was dried food I
would melt some ice to go with it (only
newly-formed ice is salty; old surface ice
loses its salt by gravity). I would heat up the
water on a petrol cooker (at those tempera¬
I used to get up at four in the morning and
set off at six. I would walk for eight to ten
hours a day, until about three or four in the
afternoon. Then I would stop, switch on my
beacon-emitter and put up my tent. After
that I would have a snack and rest until
seven, when I would contact Michel Franco
by radio. After that I would write up my log
book, have my evening meal and go to
bed.
tures gas is unusable) and pour it on the
Weren't you ever afraid that you might go to
dried food to produce a kind of porridge. In
sleep in the cold and never wake up again?
the evenings my supper consisted of soup
and a freeze-dried pre-cooked dish.
No. When you are in good physical shape,
as I was, you are always first woken up by
31
Nutritionist and medical doctor, Jean-
about my childhood and my family. And
Has this experiment of yours added to the
Louis Etienne devised the contents of
then there was God ... the God of the Arc¬
sum of scientific knowledge?
compact rations to provide him with 5,000
calories a day. The food was freeze-drled
and vacuum-packed in numbered packets
each weighing 1 kg. Supplies were flown to
him every two weeks.
tic,
I
From it I have gained a medical observation
demanded right of passage. It was, as it
on human adaptation to cold, as well as a
we're, a sort of journey of initiation. Yet I
nutritional study the rations I developed
are now being used in France by the men of
the
God of the
Pole,
of whom
never felt any anxiety.
But did you feel fear?
Yes, twice. Once when I saw the tracks of a
the cold. You only die of cold if you are ill,
or tired
bear, and then when the ice gave way under
my feet. My reflex was to fall flat on the
for example, after being stuck for
sheet ice and to crawl. Only afterwards did
several days on a mountain ledge. In that
I realize that I might have had a serious
case,
after
a
long
struggle,
you
get
accident.
When you got back, did you undergo a series
Did you manage to warm yourself up in your
No. The temperatures in the tent varied
between -52°C and -20°C. I had to take
great care, before going to bed, to brush off
important test was an evaluation of my
adaptation to the cold. As I had done before
I set out, I underwent tests in a cold cham¬
ber. I stayed in the chamber, naked, for two
like a skin under my watertight clothing and
hours, in a temperature of 1°C and in an
which could, during the night, have brought
airstream of a speed of 8 metres per second ,
on a chill. I used to make myself a hot water
which is the equivalent of a temperature of
I would fill with boiling water and hold
against myself inside my sleeping-bag.
ket and the tests using the beacon-emitter
supplied by the Centre National d'Etudes
Spatiales are considered to be conclusive. I
have also worked with Professor Jouvet, of
trary to all expectations, I slept very well
throughout my journey. But it must be
repeated that scientific research, and par¬
the frozen perspiration which covered me
bottle with a 1-litre aluminium bottle which
-10"C. My internal temperature and my
consumption of oxygen was then measured.
ticularly medical research, should be based
on a large number of experiments. No valid
observations can be based on a single case.
Most of all, I have the impression that, in
the eyes of young people, I have taken over
the role of those who first aroused in me my
passion for adventure.
After the North Pole, you now plan to cross
the Antarctic.
Before setting out, over a period of two
This time I shall not be alone. I shall have
hours, I had maintained a temperature of
three travelling companions, two Amer¬
Did you suffer from solitude in those vast
37°C at the cost of a certain consumption of
icans and someone from the Soviet Union.
frozen expanses?
energy. On my return, it was observed that
We shall also have two dog teams. We shall
Solitude is not a handicap, it is a fantastic
my temperature went down progressively to
cross the continent, keeping in contact with
force which enables you to bring all your
35.5"C before my body began to fight
resources fully into play. Going to the
against the cold, and that my energy con¬
sumption was considerably lower. In other
a polar sailing vessel which will hug the
coast and transmit the pictures we shall be
North Pole is no joyride. You have to be on
32
of medical examinations?
Yes. I had lost six kilograms. The most
tent?
watch I developed has been put on the mar¬
Lyon, on the subject of sleep. In fact, con¬
exhausted and there is a danger of falling
asleep for good.
the Chasseurs Alpins Regiment and by par¬
ticipants in the Paris-Dakar car rally. The
sending. This expedition, planned for 1989-
the look-out all the time. You have to pick
your route and avoid falling and injuring
yourself. You are living permanently on the
words, I had become accustomed to living
1990,
at a below normal temperature and, from
Antarctic Treaty (1961-1991) which regul¬
the point of view of energy expenditure, my
ates the status of the Antarctic. We want to
razor's edge. At the same time, however,
two hours in the cold chamber had been
focus attention on this immense territory
you can give free rein to your imagination.
very economical. Like primitive man, or
which, under 2,000 metres of ice, contains
Blocks of ice are transformed into mountain
like nomads who sleep in the open air, my
great mineral wealth which in four years
will coincide with the expiry of the
peaks, into towers or cathedrals. Some¬
body's thermoregulatory mechanism had
time will belong to no one. It is our hope
times I would say to myself: I shall go on to
adapted to hypothermic (low tempera¬
that all industrial or strategic exploitation of
that house ...
ture)
to that mountain ...
After
conditions.
Thus,
modern
man,
the continent will be excluded and that it
about three weeks to a month, when you
accustomed
can
will retain its international status and its
to
high
temperatures,
have got into your stride and the landscape
return fairly rapidly to the physical ther¬
vocation as a land of scientific research.
starts to seem monotonous, other thoughts
moregulatory comportment of his primitive
Above all, our hope is that it will remain a
take over. I have never thought so much
ancestors.
land of silence.
Marathon Man
by Bredo Berntsen
LONG-DISTANCE running has
enjoyed a popular revival in
Ernst. His subsequent career was to last
The only surviving contemporary portrait
for twenty-five years.
of Mensen Ernst
recent years, and runners such as
Bikila and Grethe Waitz are household
His first important run was in the spring
of 1819, from London to Portsmouth (116
kilometres) in nine hours. His popularity
names. But it was 150 years ago that the
was assured when he then covered the 240
to Moscow. Among those who helped
greatest runner of all time was at the peak
kilometres from London to Liverpool in
thirty-two hours.
him organize the stakes was a Swedish
After a time he began to long for the
to receive 3,800 francs if he covered the
His real name was Mons Monsen Oyri.
Continent, however, and in 1820 crossed
distance in fifteen days. He left Paris on
He was the son of a poor tenant farmer
the Channel again, travelling on foot to
11 June, arriving in Kaiserlantern two
from Leikanger on the Sognefjord where
Annenrode manor in Mühlhausen (in
he was born in 1795. He lived there until
what is now the German Democratic
days later. "I felt I was sailing ... on my
two unique frigates," he was quoted
he was about fifteen years old, when he
Republic), where he made a number of
later, in a German book about him writ¬
moved to the town of Bergen. He went to
life-long friends. From then on he lived as
sea, and won his first competitive run in
a professional runner, and his fame as the
Cape Province in 1813.
greatest runner of all time spread quickly
as he ran from city to city Berlin,
ten in 1838. "Those who witnessed my
running considered me eccentric, or else
a fool, or possessed by the devil."
Paavo Nurmi, Emil Zatopek, Abebe
of his career. He was a Norwegian named
Mensen Ernst.
As a seaman and adventurer he visited
In 1832, aged thirty-seven, Ernst went
to Paris in order to plan an audacious run
diplomat, Count Löwenhielm. Ernst was
On 18 June he crossed the Polish river
the American, African, Asian and Aus¬
Prague, Rome
across the Continent. In
Vistula and next day was in Russia. He
tralian continents, acquiring along the
1826 he put on a demonstration in
Copenhagen, where the high fees he
actually reached Moscow a day earlier
than expected. The commander there
earned included
100 "daler" from the
had prepared to greet him, but because of
Ernst's early arrival and the ragged state
the "Running King", as he was known in
Danish King Frederick VI. Ironically, his
native Norway was one of the few coun¬
tries through which he never ran.
Norwegian, shows him cradling a sex¬
After some years Mensen Ernst came
way survival skills that were later to help
him navigate, wheedle and bluff his way
through his extraordinary journeys. The
only surviving contemporary portrait of
tant.
In 1818 he arrived in London. It is here
to see himself as something of an interna¬
tionalist. He became a genuine traveller,
of his clothing he was taken at first for a
beggar. He had covered about 2,500 kilo¬
metres, or more than
170 kilometres
daily.
a runner or walker who covered long dis¬
customs; he learned to speak French,
How did Ernst adapt to the extreme
conditions encountered on his journeys,
the burning sun, cold winds, pouring
tances in return for money. Here he also
English and German well, and knew
rain? We know that he had a strict set of
took his professional name,
some Italian and Turkish.
rules that he followed all his life. He stuck
that he officially became a "pedestrian",
curious
Mensen
about
foreign
cultures
and
to a simple diet, for example: mostly
bread and cheese, a few vegetables, less
frequently cold meat; but he never ate
warm food. He also preferred to sleep
outdoors, believing that lying on hard
ground kept the body supple. If he did
sleep indoors it was always on a hard
bench, never a soft bed. His only weak¬
ness was for wine, which he used to drink
by the bottle even on his runs, but with no
apparent ill effects.
By the time he returned to Paris from
his Moscow run, Mensen Ernst was a
hero. He had become a living legend who
attracted rapturous audiences of thou¬
sands.
In 1833, he set out from Munich for
Old London Bridge in the early 19th cen¬
tury, around the time when Mensen Ernst
began his running career.
33
The desert near Theben, north of Syene
(now Aswan) in southeast Egypt, where
the great runner died from dysentery in
1843.
Sea. He covered about 8,300 kilometres
in fifty-nine days, 150 kilometres daily
allowing for a three-day rest in Cal¬
cutta.
The newspapers of his day praised his
achievement in completing the Asiatic
tour.
The Times on 24 March stressed
"the unquestionable certificates" held by
Ernst.
His fourth epic run was to be his last. It
began when the German author, proprie¬
tor and adventurer, Count Hermann von
ÍT///.'V.,-»rt- i
Pückler-Muskau,
thirty
years
before
Stanley and Livingstone, asked him to
find the source of the White Nile. Count
Nauplion, then the capital of the newly
founded state of Greece. He suggested to
King Ludwig I and Queen Thérèse that
On 1 July he stood outside the King's
Hermann had a keen interest in running
residence in Nauplion to receive his
stemming from a visit to Greece in 1837,
he carry documents for their son, Otto I
2,700 kilometres in just over twenty-four
of Greece, and after a delay of some
days. Allowing about four days' delay for
months his offer was accepted. His depar¬
various mishaps, he had done the run in
ture on 6 June was cheered by a crowd of
20,000 outside Nymphenburg Palace.
This was a particularly dramatic jour¬
ney, partly because of the rugged land¬
scape, partly because of some unusually
award of 1,000 guilders. He had covered
heard about the Norwegian's exploits
four years previously.
Ernst left the Count's estate in Prussian
twenty days, or about 135 kilometres
daily. These statistics are so extraordin¬
Silesia on 11 May, 1842. He passed Con¬
ary that we are lucky to have contempo¬
thirty days, and then ran the 500 kilo¬
stantinople and reached Jerusalem in
metres to Cairo. After some months in
rary sources to verify them.
Ernst's third and most dramatic project
began with an offer by British merchants
Cairo he headed south along the Nile.
along the way. In Montenegro he was set
of the East India Company in Con¬
upon by five robbers wielding pistols and
stantinople: £150 to carry important doc¬
swords; as well as his money, they took
uments to Calcutta. He left on 28 July
cumbed to dysentery on 22 January 1843,
ending his legendary career in the desert
near Syene, now Aswan. Ten years later a
his maps, compass and quadrant, but for¬
1836.
severe
problems
Ernst
encountered
The
vigorous
Norwegian
had
tunately not the letters. He managed to
thought the journey would take perhaps
find his way to the town of Cattaro, where
six weeks; in fact he did it in four, on a
he got food and drink, new maps and
compass, and started out again only to
be arrested as a spy. He spent three days
in jail before he was freed by the Pasha of
route that took him through Anatolia,
Janina, who "looked more like a Western
ney he took a more northerly route:
general than an Oriental Pasha", as Ernst
Lahore, across Persia to the Caspian Sea,
later said.
Teheran, Tabriz, and up to the Black
The Courier
author of a book about the life and times of Men-
On his twenty-eight-day return jour¬
Place de Fontenoy, 75700 Paris; (2) University
Microfilms (Xerox), Ann Arbor, Michigan 48100,
U.S.A. ; (3) NCR. Microcard Edition, Indian
U.S.A. ; (4) Bell and Howell Co. , Old Mansfield
Road, Wooster, Ohio44691, U.S.A.
captions and headlines are written by the Unesco
Courier staff. The boundaries on maps published in
the magazine do not imply official endorsement or
acceptance by Unesco or the United Nations. The
Unesco Courier is produced in microform
(microfilm and/or microfiche) by: (1) Unesco, 7
has it!
tinent.
Head, Inc. ,111 West 40th Street, New York,
those of the editors of the Unesco Courier. Photo
Norwegian newspaper declared: "The
world will never see his like again." Nor
BREDO BERNTSEN, of Norway, is deputy
librarian at the University of Oslo. He is the
Unesco, 7 Place de Fontenoy, 75700 Paris.
1 year: 90 French francs.
Binder for a year's issues: 62 FF
The Unesco Courier is published monthly.
Individual articles and photographs not copyrighted
may be reprinted providing the credit line reads
"Reprinted from the Unesco Courier", plus date of
issue, and three voucher copies are sent to the
editor. Signed articles reprinted must bear author's
name. Non-copyright photos will be supplied on
request. Unsolicited manuscripts cannot be
returned unless accompanied by an international
reply coupon covering postage. Signed articles
express the opinions of the authors and do not
necessarily represent the opinions of Unesco or
But now his luck had run out. He suc¬
and finally across the Indian sub-con¬
Editorial, Sales and Distribution Office:
Subscription rates
34
when he had watched the Marathon and
Editorial staff (Paris)
Assistant Editor-in-chief: Olga Rodel
Managing Editor: Gillian Whitcomb
Editors:
sen Ernst, Loperkongen (The Running King",
Oslo, 1986), and of many other articles and
books including Naturvernets historie i Norge
(1977, "The History of Nature Conservation in
Norway").
Non-Headquarters editions
German: Werner Merkli (Berne)
Japanese: Seiichiro Kojima (Tokyo)
Italian: Mario Guidotti (Rome)
Hindi: Ram Babu Sharma (Delhi)
Tamil: M. Mohammed Mustafa (Madras)
Hebrew: Alexander Broîdo (Tel Aviv)
Persian: H. Sadough Vanini (Teheran)
Dutch: PauIMorren (Antwerp)
Portuguese: Benedicto Silva (Rio de Janeiro)
Spanish: Francisco Fernandez-Santos
Turkish: Mefra Ilgazer (Istanbul)
Urdu: Hakim Mohammed Said (Karachi)
Catalan: Joan Carreras i Marti (Barcelona)
Malaysian: Azizah Hamzah (Kuala Lumpur)
Korean: Paik Syeung-Gil (Seoul)
Swahili: Domino Rutayebesibwah (Dar-es-Salaam)
Russian: Nikolai Kuznetsov
Croato-Serb, Macedonian, Serbo-Croat, Slovene:
Arabic: Abdelrashid Elsadek Mahmoudi
Bozidar Perkovic (Beigrade)
Chinese: Shen Guofen (Beijing)
Bulgarian: Goran Gotev (Sofia)
Greek: Nicolas Papageorgiou (Athens)
Sinhala: S.J. Sumanasekera Banda (Colombo)
Finnish: Marjatta Oksanen (Helsinki)
Swedish: Lina Svenzén (Stockholm)
Basque: Gurutz Larrañaga (San Sebastian)
Thai: Savitri Suwansathit (Bangkok)
Vietnamese: Dao Tung (Hanoi)
English: Roy Malkin
Caroline Lawrence
French: Alain Lévêque
Neda el Khazen
Braille:
Research: Violette Ringelstein
Illustrations: Ariane Bailey
Layout and Design: Georges Servat, George Ducret
Promotion: Fernando Ainsa
Sales and subscriptions: Henry Knobil
Special projects: Peggy Julien
All correspondence should be addressed to
the Editor-in-chiefin Paris
IMPRIME EN FRANCE (Printed in France) - Dépôt légal : C1 Juin 1 987
PHOTOGRAVURE-IMPRESSION : MAURY-IMPRIMEUR S.A., Z.I. route d'Etampes, 45330 MALESHERBES.
The Courier
For people who care about
Forthcoming issues include:
the rest of the world . . .
The world ofmedicine
The baroque
Underwater archaeology
A monthly magazine, each
issue usually devoted to a single
theme
Japan
Stimulating and informative
coverage from a wide range of
viewpoints
A window open on the world
A meeting-place for different
outlooks and cultures
A valuable source of ideas and
information on current issues
such as development, new
technologies, human rights and
the rights of peoples, and the
cultural heritage
A powerful instrument in the
service of international solidarity
and understanding
Join or ask
your friends to
join our international
family of more
than 3 million readers
around the world.
Annual subscription
12 issues: 90 French francs
The only magazine in the world
published in 33 languages, with 4 (free) language editions in Braille.
Where to renew your subscription
and place your order for other Unesco periodicals
Order from any bookseller or write direct to the National Distributor in your country.
(See list below; names of distributors in countries not listed, along with subscription rates
in local currency, will be supplied on request.)
AUSTRALIA. Hunter Publications, 58a Gipps St., Colhngwood, Victoria 3066;
Hong
Information Services. Publication Centre, Baskerville
Karachi 29. POLAND. Orpan-lmport. Palac Kultury I Nauki, Warsaw; Ars
Publications: Educational Supplies Pty. Ltd., P.O. Box 33, Brookvale 2100,
House, 22 Ice St. HUNGARY. Kultura-Bushimport-ABT, P.O.B. 149-H-1389,
Polona-Ruch, Krakowskie Przedmiescie No.7. 00-068 Warsaw. PORTUGAL
NSW; Periodicals: Dominie Pty. Subscriptions Dept., P.O. Box 33, Brookvale
Budapest 62. ICELAND. Snaebjorn Jonsson and Co.. H.F. Hafnarstraeti 9,
Dias & Andrade Ltda. Livraria Portugal, rua do Carmo 70, Lisbon. SAUDI
2100, NSW. Sub-agent: United Nations Association of Australia, Victorian
Reykjavik. INDIA. Orient Longman Ltd., Kamam Marg, Ballard Estate, Bom¬
Division, 328 Flinders Street, Melbourne 3000. AUSTRIA. Buchhandlung
bay 400038; 17 Chitaranjan Ave.. Calcutta 13; 36a, Anna Salai, Mount Road,
ARABIA. Dar al Watan, Olaya Main Street, Ibrahim Bin Sulaym Building,
Riyadh. SINGAPORE. Federal Publications (S) Pte Ltd. Times Jurong. 2
Gerold and Co., Graben 31. A-1011, Vienna. BAHRAIN. United Schools
Madras 2; 5-9-41/1 Bashir Bagh, Hyderabad 500001 (AP); 80/1 Mahatma
Jurong Port Rd.. Singapore 2261. SOUTH AFRICA. American & Overseas
Kong Govt.
International. Arab Regional Office, P.O. Box 726, Bahrain. BARBADOS.
Gandhi Rd Bangalore 560001; 3-5-820 Hyderguda, Hyderabad-500001.
University of the West Indies Bookshop. Cave Hill Campus. P.O. Box 64,
Sub-depots: Oxford Book and Stationery Co., 17 Park St., Calcutta 70016;
Universitas Books (Pty) Ltd., P.O. Box 775, Pretoria 0001. Van Schaiks
Bridgetown. BELGIUM. "Unesco Courier" Dutch edition only: Internationale
Scindia House, New Delhi. INDONESIA. Indira P.T., JIDr. Sam Ratulangie37,
Bookstore (Pty) Ltd., Libri Building, 268 Church Street, Pretoria 0001 . Central
Drukkerij en Uitgeverij Keesing, Keesmglaan 2-20. 2100 Deurne-Antwerpen.
Jakarta Pusat. IRAN. Iranian National Commission tor Unesco, 1 188 Englab
News Agency Ltd., Group Overseas Periodical Div. P.O. Box613, Cape Town
CCP 000-001 2775-68. French edition and general Unesco publications agent:
Publications (Pty) Ltd. . Subscription Service, P.O. Box 42476, Johannesburg.
Ave., Rostam Give Building, Zip Code 13158. P.O. Box 1 1365-4498, Teheran.
8000. SRI LANKA. Lake House Bookshop, 100 Sir Chittampalam Gardiner
Jean da Lannoy, 202 Ave. du Roi, 1060 Brussels, CCP 000-0070823-13.
IRELAND. The Educational Company of Ireland Ltd., Ballymount Rd., Walkin-
Mawata, P.O.B. 244, Colombo 2. SUDAN. AI Bashir Bookshop, P.O. Box
BRAZIL Publicaçoes Técnicas Internacionais Ltda, Processing Dept.. R
stown. Dublin 12. ISRAEL. Literary Transactions, Inc., c/o Steimatzky Ltd.,
1118. Khartoum. SURINAME. Suriname National Commission for Unesco,
Peixoto Gomide 209, 01409, Sao Paulo SP. CANADA. Renouf Publishing Co.
Ltd., 1294 Algoma Road, Ottawa, Ontario K1B 3W8. STORES: 61 Sparks
P.O. Box 628. Tel Aviv 61006A.B.C. Bookstore Ltd., P.O. Box 1283, 71
P.O. Box 2943. Paramaribo. SWEDEN. For the Unesco Courier: Svenska FN
Allenby Rd., Tel Aviv 61 000. ITALY. Licosa (Librería Commissionaria Sanso-
Street. Ottawa, 21 1 Yonge St., Toronto. SALES OFFICE: 7575 Trans Canada
ni, S.pA), Via Lamarmora 45, Casella Postale 552, 50121 Florence. JAPAN.
Williams AB, Nordenflychtsvagen 70, S-104, 25 Stockholm; Esselte Tidskrift-
Hwy. Ste. 305, St. Laurent, Quebec H4T 1 V6. CHINA. China National Publica¬
Eastern Book Service Inc., 37-3 Hongo 3-chome Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113.
scentralen, Gamla Brogatan 26, Box 62 -101 , 20 Stockholm. SWITZERLAND.
tions Import and Export Corporation, P.O. Box 88, Beijing.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA. S.N.T.L., Spalena 51-113 02, Prague 1 ; Ve Smeckach
KOREA. Korean National Commission tor Unesco. P.O. Box Central 64,
Europa Verlag, 5 Rämistrasse, Zürich; Librairie Payot, Rue Grenus 6, 1 21 1 .
Seoul. KUWAIT. The Kuwait Bookshop Co., Ltd, POB 2942, Kuwait; for the
Geneva 11, CCP. 12-236; Librairies Payot also in Lausanne, Basle, Berne.
30, P.O.B. 790-1 1 1-27 Prague 1 (Permanent display); Zahranicni literatura, 1 1
Unesco Courier: Farafalla Press Agency, P.O. Box SAFA 4541. Kuwait.
Vevey, Montreux, Neuchâtel and Zurich. SYRIA. Aleppo University Books
Establishment, University of Aleppo. Aleppo. TANZANIA. Dar-es-Salaam
Förbundet, Skolgrand 2. Box 150 50 S-104. 65 Stockholm; Wennergren-
Soukenicka, Prague 1 . For Slovakia only: Alfa Verlag.-Publishers, Hurbanovo
LUXEMBOURG.
nam. 6,893 31 Bratislava-CSSR. DENMARK. Munksgaard Export-OG, Tids-
MALAYSIA. University of Malaya Co-operative Bookshop, Kuala Lumpur
Bookshop, P.O.B. 9030, Dar-es-Salaam. THAILAND. Nibondh and Co. Ltd..
sknftservice, 35 Norre Sogade, DK-1970 Kobenhavn K. EGYPT (ARAB
22-1 1. MALTA. Sapienzas, 26 Republic St., Valletta. MAURITIUS. Nalanda
REPUBLIC OF). National Centre lor Unesco Publications, No. 1 Talaat Harb
Company Ltd., 30 Bourbon St.. Port-Louis. MEXICO. Librería El Correo de la
40-42 Charoen Krung Road. Siyaeg Phaya Sri, P.O, Box 402. Bangkok;
Suksapan Pantt. Mansion 9, Rajdamnern Ave.. Bangkok. TRINIDAD AND
St., Cairo. FINLAND. Akateemmen Kirjakauppa, P. O. Box 128, SF-00100
Unesco, Actipán 66, Colonia del Valle, Mexico 12, DF. MONACO. British
TOBAGO. National Commission for Unesco, 18 Alexandra St., St. Clair,
Helsinki. Suomalainen Kirjakauppa Oy, P.O. Box 2, 01641 Vantas 64. Rauti-
Library, 30 Bd. des Moulins, Monte Carlo. NEPAL Sajha Prakashan Pol-
Trinidad W 1 . TURKEY. Haset Kitapevi A.S., Istiklâl Caddesi, No 469, Posta
kirja Oy, Subscription Department, P.O. Box 1, 01641 Vantas 64. FRANCE.
chowk. Kathmandu. NETHERLANDS. Faxon Europe, P.O. Box 197, 1000 AD
Kutusu 219, Beyoglu, Istanbul. UNITED KINGDOM. H.M. Stationery Office,
Librairie de l'Unesco, 7 Place de Fontenoy, 75700 Pans. CCP 12598-48.
Amsterdam. NEW ZEALAND. Government Publishing. P.O. Box 14277Kilbirnie, Wellington; 130 Oxford Terrace. P.O. Box 1721 , Christchurch; Alma
Agency Section Publications CTR, Periodicals Section-Room 008, Nine Elms
GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC. Buchhaus Leipzig, Postfach 1 40. 710
Librairie
Paul
Brück,
22,
Grande-Rue,
Luxembourg.
Leipzig, or from Internationalen Buchhandlungen in the G.D.R. FED. REP. OF
St., P.O. Box 857, Hamilton; Princes St., P.O. Box 1 104, Dunedin. NIGERIA.
Lane, London SW8 5DR. and H.M.S.O. Bookshops in London, Edinburgh,
Belfast, Manchester. Birmingham, Bristol; for scientific maps only: McCarta
GERMANY. For the Unesco Courier: Mr. H. Baum, Deutscher Unesco-Kurier
The University Bookshop of Ife; The University Bookshop of Ibadan, P.O.-286.
Ltd.. 1 22 Kings Cross Rd.. London WC1 X 9DS. UNITED STATES. Bernan-
Vertrieb, Basaltstrasse 57, D5300 Bonn 3. GHANA. Fides Entreprises, P.O.
NORWAY. JohanGrundtTanum, P.O.B. 1177 Sentrum - Oslo 1; Narvesen
UNIPUB. Penodicals Department, 4611-F Assembly Drive, Lanham, MD
Box 14129, Accra. GREAT BRITAIN. See United Kingdom. GREECE John
A/S, Litteraturt Jenesten. P.O.B. 6125 Etterstad, N 0602 Oslo 6; Universitets
20706 4391 . USSR. V/O Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga, Ul. Dimitrova 39. Moskva
Mihalopoulos & Son SA, International Booksellers, P.O. Box 10073, 541 10
Bokhandelen,
Universitetssentret,
Postboks
307
Blindem,
Oslo
3.
113095. YUGOSLAVIA. Mladost, llica 30/1 1, Zagreb; Cankan'eva Zalozba,
Thessaloniki. G C Eleftheroudakis SA, International Bookstore, 4 Nikis Street,
PAKISTAN. Mirza Book Agency. 65 Shahrah Quaid-i-azam, P.O. Box No.
Zopitarjeva 2, Lubljana; Nolit, Terazije 27/11, Belgrade. ZAMBIA. National
Athens T 1 26. Koslarakis Brothers. International Booksellers, 2 Hippocratous
729. Lahore 3; Unesco Publications Centre, Regional Office for Book De¬
Educational Distribution Co. of Zambia Ltd., P.O. Box 2664, Lusaka.
Street. Athens. HONG KONG. Swindon Book Co., 1 3-1 5, Lock Rd., Kowloon.
velopment in Asia and the Pacific, 39 Delhi Housing Society, P.O. Box 8950,
ZIMBABWE. Textbook Sales (PVT) Ltd.. 1 Norwich Union Centre, Harare.
Different walks of life
Above, at an altitude of some 4,000 metres, a traveller and his pack-animals wend their way above
the valley of Dolpo in the Himalayas (Nepal); below, a woman aquanaut carries out an experiment
near an underwater habitat in the Caribbean (see page 25).