Gompertz curve in physiology: an application.

Gompertz curve has been successfully used to estimate mortality intensities, recovery and relapse rates for human beings suffering from specific diseases. Perhaps, no attempt has yet been made to describe statistically the phenomenon of thermoregulation efficiency of man. This paper deals with the statistical approach for describing the above mentioned phenomenon. For this purpose, Gompertz curve has been fitted to the data of recovery palm skin temperature of human subjects, which was collected after removing the hand of a subject dipped for two minutes in cold water maintained at 10 +/- 1 degree C on seven environmental situations including altitude. The coefficients of correlation between observed and estimated palm skin temperature expressed logarithmically were close to 0.99 for each situation indicating the high precision of the fitted curve. The average rates of recovery of palms skin temperature have also been compared between these seven environmental situations using analysis of covariance technique. It is concluded that recovery of palm skin temperature of sea level residents during stay at plains is much faster than their recovery at high altitude situations.

Organ fluid compartments in rats exposed to high altitude.

Rats were exposed to acute hypobaric hypoxia corresponding to an altitude of 6,100 m for 5 hours and 24 hours and were studied for organ fluid changes. Total water and extracellular water content of various organs, i.e. lung, liver, spleen, heart, kidney, muscle, brain testis and subcutaneous tissue were determined by the difference of dry and wet weights and using radiobromide-82 respectively. Lung and liver were found to be significantly hydrated with lower water contents in subcutaneous tissue, spleen and muscle on prolonged exposure. The data indicated a shift of fluids from extracellular to intracellular compartment.