PLAN OF THE INVESTIGATION. 11 



progress for the last half century. An enormous number of titles is 

 included in the available bibliographies, notably those of Abderhalden 1 

 and Viazemsky. 2 Many of these researches are at present absolutely 

 inaccessible to us. To cover all adequately would be the labor of 

 years. To delay experimentation until a complete digest had been 

 made would have meant to postpone experimental work indefinitely. 

 We have attempted to digest the main experimental investigations per- 

 taining to the special phases of the alcohol problem of which we treat 

 in this book ; but we have written with a painful sense of many omis- 

 sions that should appear in any attempt to record faithfully each 

 experimenter's share in the progress of knowledge concerning the 

 psychology of alcohol. Our lists of works cited disclaim any pretense 

 of being a complete collection of the relevant literature. For such, 

 reference must be made to the excellent bibliographies just cited. 



The investigation of certain purely physiological phases of the alcohol 

 problem was begun concurrently with the investigation in the psycho- 

 logical laboratory. But the larger proportion of the efforts of the 

 Nutrition Laboratory in the alcohol investigation during the academic 

 year of 1913-14 were concentrated upon the psychological program. 

 This arrangement seemed desirable, since we were forced to take 

 advantage of the relatively short time that Dodge could be free from 

 his academic work. This first publication under the general plan for 

 the systematic investigation of alcohol consequently has to deal with 

 the effects of alcohol on the neuro-muscular tissue, with special refer- 

 ence to mental operations and conduct. 



Neither the technical nor the practical difficulties of this phase of the 

 problem were underestimated. As we pointed out in the psychological 

 program, unfortunately only the simpler and more elementary neuro- 

 muscular processes can be studied directly by present laboratory 

 techniques. Of the important higher mental and moral processes 

 there is at present scant probability for securing experimental data of 

 scientific reliability, owing to the difficulty of measuring them experi- 

 mentally in any direct way. This technical defect is a serious limita- 

 tion to all experimental investigations of the psychological effects of 

 the ingestion of alcohol, since it is in precisely these directions that our 

 general and scientific experience indicates that the effects of alcohol 

 are probably the most serious. 3 It is in these directions also that 

 animal experimentation most needs to be supplemented by data from 

 human subjects. The present investigation makes no pretense to have 



'Abderhalden, Bibliographic der gesamten wissenschaftlichen Literatur iiber den Alkohol 

 und den Alkoholismus, Berlin and Vienna, 1904. 



2 Viazemsky, A bibliography on the question of alcoholism, Moscow, 1909, Part I. (Russian.) 

 The Russian original, together with an English translation made by H. A. Norman and H. B. 

 Dine, are both on file at the Nutrition Laboratory. 



3 Hodge, Pop. Sci. Monthly, 1896-97, 50, pp. 594 and 796; Hunt, Hyg. Lab., Public Health and 

 Marine-Hospital Service Bull. No. 33, 1907; Laitinen, Zcitschr. f. Hyg. u. Infectionskrankheiten, 

 1907, 58, p. 139. 



