188 PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL. 



it will not be an incident in any other investigation. With modern 

 techniques it will make large demands on time and equipment. To 

 have combined it with the investigation of neuro-muscular processes 

 would have jeopardized both. The demands of the experimental pro- 

 cedure on both subject and experimenter would regularly conflict, since, 

 while complete mental and bodily relaxation is a necessary condition 

 for a pulse base-line, the purpose of the neuro-muscular experiment is 

 to introduce stimuli to action. 



Notwithstanding the fact that the main ends of this investigation 

 precluded a systematic study of the pulse, adequate simultaneous 

 pulse-records were believed to be important, both for the neuro- 

 muscular investigation itself, and as a contribution to the systematic 

 investigation of the human pulse. It has been a long-established 

 custom of the Nutrition Laboratory to take pulse-rates during all 

 experiments. There is an important theoretical value of regular pulse- 

 records also in psychological experiments (Dodge. 1 ) When taken 

 antecedent to the psychological experiment, the pulse is the best avail- 

 able indicator of the general physiological and psychical status of the 

 subject. During the experimental process, pulse-change gives us the 

 simplest means of estimating the general physiological changes, or 

 metabolism, incident to the experiment. Moreover, it is clear that, 

 while a systematic study of pulse must be based on the pulse of relaxa- 

 tion, no investigation of the effect of alcohol on the human pulse will 

 be adequate which limits itself to relaxed subjects. Complete relaxa- 

 tion is an artifact of the laboratory. Theoretically, it is a limit. 

 Practically, it is an ideal which the actual condition of the subject at 

 any given moment may more or less closely approximate. Its main 

 relation to actual conditions of normal or abnormal life is to furnish 

 a theoretical base-line upon which actual conditions may be plotted, 

 from which the deviation of actual conditions may be quantitatively 

 expressed. While any systematic investigation of pulse under alcohol 

 must be based on relaxed subjects, it must also include the effects of 

 alcohol under experimental variations from relaxation. Such pulse- 

 changes should be correlated as closely as possible with the records of 

 actual accomplishment. It is obvious that pulse-records which are 

 taken simultaneously with our neuro-muscular measurements meet 

 these conditions for the particular experimental deviation from relaxa- 

 tion which they accompany. Our pulse-records, then, should consti- 

 tute data not only for an interpretation of the neuro-muscular work, 

 but also for a contribution to the systematic experimental study of the 

 effect of alcohol on the autonomic system under experimental condi- 

 tions. They should be regarded as a supplement to the future system- 

 atic investigation of pulse, as well as a connecting link between the 

 latter and the present investigation. 



'Dodge, Psychological Review, 191.3, 20, p. 1. 



