Aerospace Medicine

I

Introduction

Aerospace Medicine, branch of preventive medicine that is concerned with the physiological and psychological stresses on the human body in flight. The study of effects within the earth’s atmosphere is also called aviation medicine; beyond this atmosphere the study of effects is also called space medicine. Aerospace medicine was recognized as a subspecialty by the American Medical Association in 1953.

II

Aviation Medicine

Specialists in aviation medicine study the reactions of humans to the stresses of air travel. They are concerned with the proper screening of candidates for flight training, the maintenance of maximum efficiency among aircrews, and with clinically oriented research into the effects of flight on the body. They also cooperate actively with aeronautical engineers in the development of safe aircraft.

A

History

Aviation medicine is rooted in the early 18th-century physiological studies of balloonists, some of whom were physicians. In 1784, a year after the first balloon flight by the French physicist Jean Pilâtre de Rozier, a Boston physician, John Jeffries, made the first study of upper-air composition from a balloon. The first comprehensive studies of health effects in air flight were made by the French physician Paul Bert, who published his research on the effects of altered air pressure and composition on humans in 1878 under the title La pression barometrique. In 1894 the Viennese physiologist Herman Von Schrötter designed an oxygen mask with which the meteorologist Artur Berson set an altitude record of 9150 m (30,000 ft). With the advent of the airplane, the first standards for military pilots were established in 1912. Significant work in this area was directed by the physician Theodore Lyster, an American pioneer in aviation medicine. Lyster set up the Aviation Medicine Research Board in 1917, which opened a research laboratory at Hazelhurst Field in Mineola, New York, in January 1918. The School of Flight Surgeons opened the following year, and in 1929 the Aero Medical Association was founded under the direction of Louis H. Bauer. In 1934 facilities were built at Wright Air Field in Dayton, Ohio, to study the effect of high-performance flight on humans. Technical advances included the first pressurized suit, designed and worn by the American aviator Wiley Post in 1934, and the first antigravity suit, designed by W. R. Franks in Britain in 1942. In an effort to help design better restraint systems for military jet aircraft, the U.S. flight surgeon John Stapp conducted a series of tests on a rocket-powered sled, culminating on December 10, 1954, when Colonel Stapp underwent deceleration from a velocity of 286 m (937 ft)/sec in 1.4 sec.

B

Physiological Considerations

Aviation medicine is concerned primarily with the effects on human beings of high speed and high altitude and involves the study of such factors as acceleration and deceleration, atmospheric pressure, and decompression. In civil aviation medicine, an additional concern is passenger airsickness.

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