Free Journal of the Dead by Jason Kersten Page B

study was practical enough: the army wanted to know how far young men could be pushed before they would break under the Saharan sun.
    Using hundreds of soldiers stationed in the Mojave Desert as his test subjects, Adolph, a rough-jawed army veteran himself, deprived them of water, then put them through a range of activities. He marched them, measured them, made them sit in sun and shade, stuck them in hot truck cabs and stifling armored vehicles—generally, he made them utterly miserable before giving them a drink. Some of the GIs, all of whom were volunteers, later wondered if they would have been better off fighting the Desert Fox,but the wealth of knowledge that quite literally came from the sweat of their brows is hard to understate. Adolph later published his findings from the study in a paper, “Physiology of Man in the Desert,” and to this day it is the pillar of what we know about what happens to people—particularly fit young men—when they’re stuck in the precise conditions Kodikian and Coughlin faced.
    The reason we can survive at all in temperatures above ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit is because water—in the form of sweat—allows us to dissipate heat from our bodies and maintain a stable core temperature. It seeps out of about 2 million glands on the surface of our skin, where it cools the blood immediately beneath. Since it also evaporates quickly in the hot desert air, sweat must be continually drawn from our bodies. Depending on size and weight, 40 to 60 percent of the human body is actually water; in a person weighing 150 pounds, it amounts to about ten gallons. The hotter the air and the more strenuous our activity, the more water our system loses; and if we can’t renew it, we immediately enter a downward spiral that Adolph divided into three stages.
    Nearly everyone has experienced the first stage, or “mild dehydration”; it occurs when we lose between 1 and 5 percent of our water, and it often happens because people have a tendency to drink less water than they need to replace what they sweat out—a phenomenon known as “voluntary dehydration.” The first symptom is usually, but not always, thirst, and we typically become dehydrated for short periods of time without ever even knowing it. As stage one progresses, however, more serious symptoms generally appear: we start to feel a vague discomfort, accompanied by sluggishness, nausea, and a loss of appetite. Psychologically, we feel impatient, irritable, partly because our hearts are beating faster inan attempt to get more blood to the skin to fight a rising core temperature. First stage dehydration is almost never fatal. Get out of the sun and drink some water, and recovery usually comes within an hour.
    Second stage, or “moderate dehydration,” occurs when we lose between 6 and 10 percent of our water. The blood actually begins to thicken and lose volume in this stage (unchecked, it will eventually reach a consistency almost identical to that of maple syrup). Moving viscously through our arteries, it can no longer deliver oxygen efficiently. Breathing becomes shorter and heavier, and exhaustion sets in. In the brain, second stage dehydration often translates into a banging headache and dizziness, while other neurological symptoms may include slurred speech (which can be exacerbated by low saliva levels) and tingling limbs. As the 10 percent mark nears, the oxygen problem can get bad enough to cause the lips and extremities to turn blue.
    Had Adolph pushed his soldiers much beyond 10 percent dehydration (he did not), some of them probably would have died. Death can come at any time during third stage, or “severe,” dehydration. Most of what we know about it comes from lucky survivors. The neurological effects are profound: deafness, hallucinations, and failing vision are typical. Potassium, which triggers muscle contractions, can reach such concentrated levels that bitingly painful spasms ensue. The tongue swells to twice its size and