Aviation Medicine traces its roots to high altitude physiology more than 400 years ago. Since then, great strides have been made in this medical specialty, initially catalysed by the need to reduce pilot medical attrition during the World Wars, and more recently, fuelled by the explosive growth in globalised commercial air travel. This paper traces the historical milestones in Aviation Medicine...

In February 1912, the Surgeon General of the United States Army prepared a special preliminary physical examination for candidates who were to receive instruction in the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps. This examination and those devised over the next four years were too demanding and few candidates could pass. In response to the need to revise medical standards for aviators, Colonel Theod...

Approximately eight percent of human males (and a fraction of one percent of females) in a given population of aircrew training applicants will have some degree of color insensitivity: that is, be unable to discriminate between certain shades of a color and white, or, between shades of colors, or even between certain colors. The insensitivity may range from mild to complete, and should not, in ...

Critics of this long series of articles on aviation medicine might be forgiven for thinking that the BMJ has succumbed to the national enthusiasm for marathons while upholding the other great British virtue of supporting minority interests. In reality, aviation medicine has made a major and vital contribution to the development of the aeronautical and space industries, which in turn have had as...