Suffer and Survive: The Extreme Life of J. S. HaldaneJohn Scott Haldane (1860-1936) was one of the greatest and most colourful of British scientists, acknowledged as the leading physiologist of the Victorian era. The most successful serial self-experimenter in the history of science, Haldane crawled through the carnage of underground explosions, locked himself in sealed chambers, breathed in lethal cocktails of gases, sampled his own blood, burned and healed his own flesh, and experimented on his own children in an obsessive push to understand the nature of human respiration. What is expired air? How can you make coal mines safer? What does carbon monoxide do to people? These are just some of the vital questions to which Haldane provided the answers, saving thousands of lives in the process. He also designed the first space-suit and invented the gas-mask, among many other innovations and contributions we still benefit from today. Entertaining and enlightening in equal measure, Martin Goodman's lively and revealing biography casts new light on one of the greatest eccentrics of British scientific and intellectual life. |
Contents
Why Miners Die | 1 |
Son of Scotland | 42 |
In the Footsteps of Goethe | 64 |
Copyright | |
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Suffer and Survive: Gas Attacks, Miners' Canaries, Spacesuits, and the Bends ... Martin Goodman No preview available - 2007 |
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acid afterdamp altitude apparatus blood body breathing British brother brought Burdon Sanderson C. G. Douglas canary carbon dioxide carbon monoxide cent chamber Charlotte Square Cherwell chlorine climbed Cloan coal colleagues Colliery D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson death divers diving doctor Doncaster dust Edinburgh effects experiments explosion eyes father feet gas attacks gases German Haldane took Haldane wrote Haldane's heat helmet investigate J. B. S. Haldane J. S. Haldane Jack John John Scott Haldane Kathleen laboratory lamp later lectures letter lives London lungs Mary Haldane miners mining minutes Mitchison mother mouse Naomi Oxford oxygen paper philosophical physiology Pikes Peak poisoning pressure Professor rescue respirator Richard Richard Haldane road Royal safety sample scientific scientists sewer shaft Siebe Gorman sister summit tion told tube tunnels turned Tylorstown underground walk young