T.h. ravenhill and his contributions to mountain sickness.
West, John B.
Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego, La
Jolla CA 92093-0623
APStracts 2:0489A, 1995.
Thomas Holmes Ravenhill was an important pioneer in high-altitude
medicine but almost nothing has been published about him. He wrote a
landmark paper in 1913 which included the classification of high
-altitude sickness that is still in use, and it also contained the
first accurate descriptions of high-altitude pulmonary edema and
high-altitude cerebral edema, although he used different terms. The
work was done while he was medical officer at the Collahuasi and
Poderosa mines in north Chile at altitudes he gave as 4690-4940 m.
Remarkably, the paper was then forgotten until it was rediscovered
over 50 years later, but it is now cited in any comprehensive study
of high-altitude illness. Ravenhill graduated in medicine from the
University of Birmingham, England in 1905 and four years later went
to the mines where he spent two years. Subsequently he served in the
Royal Army Medical Corps in the 1914-1918 war and was awarded the
Military Cross. He returned to general practice, but after a few
years gave up medicine altogether. He then made important
contributions to archeology, and spent the last third of his life in
London as a painter, mainly in watercolors. It is unclear to what
extent his war experiences brought about his dramatic career change.
Received 9 August 1995; accepted in final form 30 October 1995.
APS Manuscript Number A870-5.
Article publication pending Journal of Applied Physiology.
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1995 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 30 November 95