Man's best friend?

Douglas Mawson and Xavier Mertz were on an expedition to Antarctica. After an accident left them without food, they had no choice but to eat their huskies. Anjali Nataraja warns you not to do the same

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Douglas Mawson (b 1882; d 1958) is an Australian national hero. A geologist and Antarctic explorer, he receives far less recognition than his contemporaries Scott and Shackleton. While on Shackleton's Nimrod Antarctic expedition (1907-9), Mawson vowed to explore 3200 km of virtually unknown coastline directly south of Australia.

As an academic, he had no interest in non-scientific endeavours and declined an invitation to join Scott in an attempt to reach the South Pole. Mawson decided to lead his own expedition as he was unable to secure the company of Shackleton (who, though interested, was unable to raise funding). After a fund raising effort that puts my pre-elective begging letters to shame, he raised the capital and secured the men, equipment, and supplies necessary and set out on the Australasian Antarctic expedition in November 1911.

After setting up two Antarctic exploring bases, and many detailed investigations (in geology, magnetism, meteorology, and biology) later, he led the Far Eastern sledging expedition. He was accompanied by Belgrave Ninnis, a 24 year old English army lieutenant, and Xavier Mertz, a 29 year old Swiss man with particular skills in skiing. They travelled east for over 1000 km mapping the coastline, collecting geological samples, and discovering huge glaciers. After five weeks--and a distance of 500 km--disaster struck. Ninnis disappeared down a deep crevasse along with a team of dogs and the sledge carrying most of the food supplies.

Mawson and Mertz were forced to shoot and eat their own dogs. The animals were shared between themselves and the remaining dogs: no part was wasted. After some weeks of this diet, Mawson and Mertz noticed strange symptoms (boxes). Mawson, who was becoming increasingly irritable (which he attributed to the situation), noticed a dramatic change in his travelling companion. Mertz seemed to lose the will to move and wished only to remain in his sleeping bag. Mawson tried desperately to encourage his friend, refusing to leave him, despite the realisation that this decision may well cost him his life. Mertz began to deteriorate rapidly with diarrhoea and madness. Mawson graphically describes how Mertz thrust his own little finger into his mouth, crunched on it, looking in disgust as he spat his severed digit onto the floor of the tent.¹ This was soon followed by violent raging--Mawson had to sit on his companion's chest and hold down his arms to prevent him damaging their tent-- and by seizures, coma, and then death.

After Mertz's death, Mawson battled on, which is a great testament to his will to survive. At one point, he noticed a "lumpy, squishy feeling" in his feet, which he describes as being like treading in treacle. Removing his shoes and two pairs of socks he discovered, to his despair, that the thick skin on the soles of his feet had come away, leaving raw tissue underneath. The fluid that was now soaking his socks had caused the squishy feeling. With no option other than to carry on, he smeared lanolin onto the exposed flesh and bandaged the separated soles back into place before resuming walking.

Upon his return to base a colleague exclaimed, as he carried Mawson's emaciated form, "My God! Which one are you?" Mawson's ship, the Aurora, had already left for fear of being trapped in the summer freeze: Mawson had to recover at the base and await the thaw before returning to Australia, where he lived until his death at the age of 76.

So, what happened?

Mawson and Mertz were suffering from the effects of vitamin A toxicity. It is well known that Inuit will not eat the liver of polar bears or seals. This caution should be extended to the liver of the Greenland husky dog. Just 100 g of husky liver contains the toxic dose of vitamin A for an adult male. With six dogs between them (with a liver on average weighing 1 kg), the pair would have ingested around 60 toxic doses between them. Mawson ate far less liver than Mertz which, in all probability, is why Mertz was more seriously (indeed, fatally) affected. Mawson preferred to give the comparatively tender meat to his travelling companion, who could not bear to chew on the otherwise very tough flesh of his beloved dogs.

AP PHOTO

So, if you get stuck on your elective in the Arctic with no food (I couldn't find any references about vitamin A in penguin liver for any of you planning on an Antarctic adventure in the near future), or if you just fancy eating roast polar bear (a worrying number of recipes can be found on an internet search), please take care to avoid the liver.

1. Mawson D, Fiennes R. Home of the blizzard, a true story of Antarctic survival. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2000.