BIOLOGY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS 



with a good deal of precision. It is of utmost importance 

 to know the energy-cost of different kinds of work per- 

 formed by different individuals, under different conditions. 

 The feeling-cost, or the price the worker pays in terms of 

 discomfort, pain, weariness, or distress, is every whit 

 as real. It is of immediate concern to both management 

 and worker, even though it cannot be measured as accur- 

 ately as the amount of oxygen consumed. 



To have analyzed this problem of industrial fatigue into 

 separate components and formulated it clearly, is of itself 

 no small accomplishment. To have forged the tools of 

 research for recording and measuring the mental and the 

 bodily phenomena, is another long step toward under- 

 standing and control. 



Like the effects of practice and of variety of task, the 

 effects of fatigue are of importance partly because of their 

 interrelations with other phenomena. Psychopathologists 

 like Elton Mayo have stressed the disintegrating effects 

 of pessimistic revery, which often seizes a fatigued person 

 occupied with uninteresting work, and have shown that 

 properly systematized rests — especially when the worker 

 has been taught a technique of relaxation — are sometimes 

 the best cure for disgruntlement, radicalism, and excessive 

 labor turnover. It is the needlessly tired man who most 

 easily gets irritated at his boss and develops a grudge 

 or foments a local insurrection. Management consequently 

 studies both the physiology and the psychology of fatigue, 

 with an eye to harmonious relations as well as to health 

 and productivity. 



With the widespread use of labor-saving devices and 

 automatic machinery, however, the problem of industrial 

 fatigue has become less serious than that of boredom. 

 The nature of monotony, its consequences, and ways of 

 combating it, have been studied both here and abroad, 

 notably by Wyatt, May Smith, and Farmer, of the British 



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