High Altitude Sickness
Travelling in the early version Zephyr blimp can cause high altitude sickness (HAS). At first, it was unclear what caused the dizziness and why it only happened at higher altitudes. There were some notions in papers written since the first time of balloon flight, in France, but these were so incoherent that there was no direct relation to the current flight with the Zephyr. Medical scholars had no reference. Madeleine Rodgers, a mountaineer suggested to her stepsister Lorraine La Rue that it sounded like mountain sickness, especially when they used horses to speed up the mountain. Unfortunately, her husband died after feeling dizzy and sick, vomiting, and shortness of breath. He fell down from his horse and was dead instantly. People who checked up on him noticed hemorrhages in his eyes and waved that away as a result of the fall from the horse.
Lorraine was called as a medic to the Zephyr station after another incident as the official coroner wasn't available. When she saw the same symptoms and hemorrhaged eyes, she examined the body carefully, writing down all the details she finds. She then contatcs the captain of the Zephyr and asks if she is allowed to observe a similar flight, to make up her own findings.
She also asks some help with a little experiment. After her experiment she travels to Shardo Industries, the organization that uses the Zephyr. After some internal discussion, they decided that it would be better to help this woman with the deadly issue, as she had some very good evidence making the case.
Several flights later she sends in her papers on the cause and what she thinks would be a good remedy against this deadly sickness. Het report is now thoroughly investigated and tested by medical scholars at the University of New Lond York. Her thesis is about air pressure or more precisely, the lack of it. The tests are well written technical essays with drawings and notes. Ther relation between height and speed to reach the altitude is practically proven with a rubber balloon (invented by professor Farraday one hundred years ago. Her father always talked about the elasticity of the material.) As a side effect, she also finds out why seasickness and air motion are related. Shardo Company searches and finds an alchemist that can create the specific combination of medicine against the airsickness, and the Zephier is redesigned to have an airtight enclosure that keeps the room pressurized.
The director Sharmen Dossil of Shardo Industries is impressed with her skills and offers her a job as medical advisor in the company. A job she gladly accepts.
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