Word: ascent
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Ears and Stomach. "Pilots suffer more frequently from occupational diseases of . . . [the ear] than from all other occupational diseases combined." Conditions of flight damaging the ear: 1) "changes of atmospheric pressure during ascent and descent"; 2) harsh, monotonous propeller and exhaust noises, which airplane manufacturers are unable to muffle. A common aeronautical affliction is "aero-otitis media." This is a "chronic inflammation of the middle ear caused by a pressure difference between the air in the [ear] cavity and that of the surrounding atmosphere. It ... occurs during changes of altitude," starts as a "hissing, roaring, crackling, or snapping," soon leads...
Aeroembolism. After rapid ascent to high altitudes a pilot may be attacked by sickness similar to the dread staggers, bends, or caisson disease of divers. Cause of "aeroembolism" is formation of nitrogen bubbles in the blood and spinal fluid. Symptoms are neuritis, joint pains, a heavy red rash, burning and stabbing pain in the lungs, a weird tingling "like a small compact colony of ants rushing madly over the surface of the body." For aeroembolism, only thing to do is come down in a hurry...
Although each ascent of a radiosonde costs as much as $30, they have proved invaluable for the air service, which can not get accurate and steady weather reports from the stratosphere in any other...
...Ascent, Vag muses, is little better than The Descent. The numbness which has held him in thrall all this time--and which has been the only thing to make life possible at all in the long torturing weeks of the Biannual Heat--now stubbornly refuses to depart. Everything--mind, body,--seems permanently, albeit painlessly, frozen with the icy breath of the Great Fear, which is said to be the odorless exhaust generated by one of the machines which throb all around Vag. Once or twice since The Descent began, Vag has been able to rouse himself from this lethargy...
...McGill's ascent into a first-place tie with Toronto in the International Division and Princeton's 12-1 victory over Yale were twin highlights of the International Intercollegiate Ice Hockey League competition last week. McGill turned back one of the chief rivals for the crown it is defending, Queens University, 7 to 3, while Princeton scored its first triumph in Quadrangular League play and its second in greater-league competition by turning in the highest score made in the circuit this season...