Abstract
‘Athletes, by inhaling oxygen, can both break the world’s records and relieve themselves of the extreme distress which follows their greatest efforts.’ Leonard Hill, Matin Flack and Theodore Just, July 1908
1
Professor Leonard Hill administering supplemental oxygen to a football player at half time. From: Martin G. Triumphs & wonders of modern chemistry. New York: D Van Nostrand Company, 1913. Courtesy of Science History Institute.
Not everyone, however, was impressed by the events in White City that day. Leonard Hill, Professor of Physiology at the London Hospital Medical College, later lamented the spectacle of Pietri tottering into the stadium as ‘a sight for tears, not cheers.’ 3 Together with his colleague Martin Flack, Hill had first become interested in exercise physiology the previous year, undertaking observations on rectal temperature, blood pressure and alveolar gas tensions in medical students participating in the London Hospital and Inter-hospital athletics contest of 1907. 4
In early 1908 the pair conducted laboratory research on five subjects, which demonstrated that ‘the period in which the breath can be held without distress is greatly increased if a few breaths of oxygen are taken beforehand.’ This led them to hypothesise that ‘they would be able to relieve the dyspnoea of athletes, and probably lower … records, by giving oxygen inhalations before the race.’1,5
Putting this to a preliminary test during the 1908 London Hospital and Inter-hospital sports competition, Hill and Flack found that the prior administration of supplemental oxygen relieved distress after racing, and the winner of the three-mile event reported that ‘he had never run the first lap so easily.’ 1
On the 27 July 1908, just three days after Pietri had run the marathon, Hill engaged the services of two British middle-distance runners to formally assess the effects of oxygen in a series of trials held at Stamford Bridge stadium. The athletes, Theodore Just and Harold Holding, had both competed for Great Britain in the Olympic 800 m races the preceding week. Holding inhaled oxygen for 2 min before proceeding to run the quarter mile in 50.2 s. To the astonishment of officials, ‘he was no more blown than after a 100 yards race.’ Just meanwhile attained a personal best for the half mile, and noted that while running he felt extremely light on his feet. 1
Presenting their results at the 76th annual meeting of the British Medical Association, Hill, Flack and Just (then a medical student) further speculated that ‘the occasional breathing of oxygen might prove beneficial in long-continued efforts such as the Marathon race and the Channel swim. In horse racing too, the use of oxygen might have a notable influence.’ 1
News of these experiments quickly reached the United States, 6 and on 29 August 1908, several swimmers inhaled oxygen prior to competing in races at the aquatic carnival of the Chateau des Beaux-Arts, Huntington, Long Island, under the supervision of Ernest Smith, Professor of Physiology and Organic and Biological Chemistry, Fordham University.7,8 The participants included Elaine Golding, who was widely regarded as the best female amateur swimmer of her generation. 9 Although it was postulated that the beneficial effects of oxygen might have been mediated more by psychological than physiological means, it was noted that ‘being unimaginative and somewhat sceptical, Miss Golding was probably not affected by suggestion.’ 8
Three weeks later in Dover, Jabez ‘Jappy’ Wolffe embarked on his 11th attempt to swim the English Channel. A man ‘of splendid physique, with the requisite combination of good muscle and covering fat necessary for the accomplishment of hard muscular work when exposed to a low temperature’, Wolffe was accompanied by Flack, who began administering oxygen after the swimmer had been in the water for more than 13 h, and was exhausted. The effects of the gas were ‘striking’ and Flack later wrote: ‘The effect of a dyspnoeic 51-inch chested man at the end of a tube of oxygen is perhaps not easily appreciated at first. The bag was emptied with such amazing rapidity and completeness that a leak seemed probable, and a big one, too. A leak indeed there was, but careful inspection showed that it was only into the alveoli of an oxygen starved man.’ After 4 min, Wolffe ‘quietly turned away from the tube and started swimming again in resolute fashion.’ Despite the on-going administration of oxygen at 15-min intervals, Wolffe abandoned his crossing after 14 h and 54 min, just a quarter of a mile from the French shoreline. 10
By early October 1908, the employment of oxygen in sport had started to engender a heated debate on both sides of the Atlantic, with many questioning whether it constituted doping. 7 The British champion swimmer and cyclist Montague Holbein denounced the practice as unsportsmanlike, and Lord Lonsdale believed it to be ‘un-English’. 11 Nonetheless, the use of supplemental oxygen was briefly extended to boxing,12,13 as well as the six-day bicycle races held at Madison Square Garden, New York, 14 where the gas was administered by James Gwathmey and Richard von Foregger. 15 Hill also administered oxygen to football and hockey players at half time using a makeshift hood. This comprised a sheet of thin waterproof material, incorporating a transparent celluloid window. The top of the sheet was gathered round the forehead by an elastic band and the bottom tucked into the collar of the jersey beneath the chin. The end of a length of oxygen tubing was fastened into the sheet just below the celluloid face-piece. 16
In the face of ongoing criticism in the press, Hill chose the Lent 1909 edition of The Oxford and Cambridge review to expound his position on the matter. Observing that ‘there are few sports now-a-days which are not surrounded with highly artificial aids’ he argued that oxygen was ‘no more a dope than water taken from a pipe to cool and relieve the strain on the body.’ Content with the knowledge that he and his co-workers had gained, Hill stated that he was indifferent as to whether oxygen was used by athletes or not. 16
In the decades that followed, physiologists and sports scientists have continued to investigate the ergogenic effects of oxygen before, 17 during 18 and after physical exercise. 19 While the inhalation of supplemental oxygen is not currently prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency, its use continues to court controvesy.20,21