Decompression Sickness During the Sinking of a Caisson: A Study of some Factors in the Pathogenesis of Caisson Disease

Most of the studies of decompression sickness in industry have been made during the construction of tunnels.The sinking of a caisson, however, is a much briefer undertaking involving certain special features not encountered in tunnel work.Work of this type has received relatively little attention in recent years, although caisson sinking is performed all over the world.This paper describes an investi- gation into the incidence of decompression sickness during the sinking of reinforced concrete caissons pressure exceeded 18 lb.per sq.in.there were 79 cases of bends affecting 37 men in a total number of 1,800 compressions at the inlet caisson; at the outlet on August 20,