Decompression (diving) but in later experiments signs of what was later to become known as decompression sickness were observed. Later, when technological advances allowed the use of pressurization of mines and caissons to exclude water ingress, miners were observed to present symptoms of what would become known as caisson disease, compressed air illness, the bends, and decompression sickness. Once it was recognized that the symptoms were caused by gas bubbles, and that re-compression could relieve the symptoms, Paul Bert showed in 1878 that decompression sickness is caused by nitrogen bubbles released from tissues and blood during or after decompression, and showed the
Nitrogen walked into a space located in the Shuttle's Mobile Launcher Platform that was pressurised with pure nitrogen as a precaution against fire. When inhaled at high partial pressures (more than about 4 bar, encountered at depths below about 30 m in scuba diving), nitrogen is an anesthetic agent, causing nitrogen narcosis, a temporary state of mental impairment similar to nitrous oxide intoxication. Nitrogen dissolves in the blood and body fats. Rapid decompression (as when divers ascend too quickly or astronauts decompress too quickly from cabin pressure to spacesuit pressure) can lead to a potentially fatal condition called decompression sickness (formerly