The New Dimensions of Submarine Medicine

THERE is no better way to illustrate the challenge of environmental control in prolonged submergence and the degree to which this challenge has been met than to compare prenuclear submarines with those of the nuclear era. The statements of two veteran submariners, speaking of events separated in time by fourteen years, dramatize this evolution in long submergence capability.Captain Edward L. Beach¹ writes of USS Trigger on war patrol in 1944 and describes the environment as follows:... the bow and stern planes and steering have been put into hand operation instead of hydraulic, and brawny sailors sweat profusely as . . .