Blood, Sweat and Ice? During the 60th anniversary of the IGY lets celebrate Antarctic physiology

The International Geophysical Year started on 1 July 1957 and was a massive international effort to study the entire planet; as scientists worked in the harsh conditions of Antarctica, a team of physiologists and doctors took this unique opportunity to study the body under stress.

The International Geophysical Year was a global survey, but it had a particular impact on Antarctica, as it led to the creation and signing of the Antarctic Treaty, reserving the continent for "peaceful purposes only" and ensuring "Freedom of scientific investigation". While most of the work done was - as the name suggests - in the physical and geographical sciences, one almost unknown part of the research involved an international team of physiologists and doctors who headed out to Antarctica to study the human body in an extreme environment.

INPHEXAN, the INternational PHysiological EXpedition to ANtarctica involved six researchers from three countries: Nello Pace, William Siri and Charles Meyers from the USA; Gerhard Hildebrand, a recent German immigrant to the USA (and ex-First Alpine Battalion member); and James Adams and Lewis Griffith Evans Cresswell 'Griff' Pugh from the UK. Initiated by Pace and Siri, who shared leisure interests in high altitude climbing as well as research interests in stress and physiology, the initial plan was a study of hormonal responses to the stress of the Antarctic environment - the cold, dark, and isolation. Charles Meyer, a dentist and bacteriologist at the Naval Biological Laboratory in Berkeley went along to conduct studies of infectious diseases. The UK team had intended to study changes in metabolism, and the possibility that people are able to acclimatise to intense cold, and agreed to join with the Americans to make an international research team.