Symptomatology under storm Conditions in the North Atlantic in Control Subjects and in Persons with Bilateral Labyrinthine Defects

Abstract

Ten labyrinthine defective (L-D) and twenty normal subjects were exposed to extremely severe weather conditions during a sea voyage. The effects of such a stress were complicated by a feeling of fear in all of the normal and in some of the L-D subjects. None of the latter manifested typical symptoms of motion sickness whereas all of the normal subjects did. The fact that the L-D subjects did not become sick suggests that, even in instances where motion sickness symptoms appear to be triggered by anxiety, the vestibular organs play an essential etiological role.