46 



PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL. 



NORMAL VARIATIONS IN THE CASE OF SUBJECT 11. 



An instance where the difficulties of an adequate interpretation of 

 the data appear in extreme form is the case of Subject II. Table 1 

 gives the data for 2 days' knee-jerk experiments on Subject II. 



TABLE 1. Palellar reflex. Subject II. 

 [R' and R" are given in thousandths of a second.] 



1 Subject had been "all day at the microscope." 



2 Normal period preceding the taking of alcohol. In this and all subsequent tables, the data for 

 the first period of the alcohol experiments will be printed in italics to indicate that they were 

 obtained before the alcohol was given. 



On September 23, 30 c.c. of absolute alcohol were given in a total 

 volume of 150 c.c. directly after 8 h 20 m p.m. October 8 was a normal 

 day without alcohol. The time of day at which the series were given 

 is shown in the first column. Columns R' and R" give the latency of 

 the first and second responses, respectively, in thousandths of a second. 

 Columns H' and H" show the amount of muscle thickening in milli- 

 meters as recorded by a marker with a magnifying leverage of 6 : 1 . 



The most conspicuous fact is that the two days, September 23 and 

 October 8, started at widely different levels of reflex excitability. In 

 the first period on September 23, a 30 gm. hammer falling 20 cm. pro- 



21 4 

 duced an average muscle-thickening of p- mm. This was about 



four-tenths of the maximum voluntary isometric contraction of Subject 

 II. In the first period, on October 8, a 50 gm. hammer falling through 

 the same distance produced a contraction thickening of only one-ninth 

 of the previous amount. The latency in the two cases was 35 a and 

 51o- respectively. The regularity of the succeeding periods shows that 

 these values are not accidents. The notes on the two days show only 



