8 Effect of Alcohol on Psycho-Physiological Functions. 



be employed. Many techniques must be discarded because of faults 

 in operation, or because later work shows them to be defective. But a 

 certain amount of well-chosen repetition of experiments would be of 

 great benefit to this problem. The path of repeated experiment, while 

 in many ways unattractive, offers the only way to the harmonizing of 

 the contradictions and to the final establishment of the solution of this 

 problem. Certainly any one contemplating experimentation on the 

 psychological effects of alcohol should fairly consider the possibility of 

 making his experiments in such a way as to repeat the work of some 

 previous investigator in this field. In the work done by Kraepelin and 

 his pupils there was a limited amount of repetition of experiments, with 

 the result that progress has been made. Probably criticism would have 

 been less had there been more repetition and verification of the experi- 

 mental findings. Of course, strictly speaking, no experiment can ever 

 be repeated. This is perhaps as literally true when working with the 

 nervous system of human subjects as in any other domain. Thus the 

 complexity of the experimental material is an argument for the best 

 possible standardization of the experimental conditions if it is hoped to 

 isolate the effect of certain consciously varied factors. If different 

 investigators would independently employ the same dosage, apparatus, 

 methods, and procedure, their combined results would be of unique 

 importance. It would then be more nearly possible to discover whether 

 the different results actually represent (1) individual differences in sus- 

 ceptibility to the action of the alcohol (a general conclusion which is 

 now used to explain all sorts of contradictions in experimental results) 

 or (2) varied experimental conditions. 



No very well recognized psychological measurements or procedures 

 in taking such measurements have been advocated for use in testing for 

 the effect of a drug on human organisms. In much of the work special 

 apparatus has been employed; the duplication of this special apparatus 

 is expensive and is frequently regarded as unnecessary. It has seldom, 

 if ever, happened in this field that an investigator has had the oppor- 

 tunity which came to the writer of stepping into a laboratory equipped 

 and used by others and attempting independently to repeat a part of the 

 work of his predecessor. The possible value of repetition of experiments 

 for the thorough establishment of experimental results in this field was 

 not so apparent to the author at the time of experimentation as at the 

 present writing. In the spring of 1914, at the close of Professor Dodge's 

 experimental work at the Nutrition Laboratory, the least promising 

 of the normal group employed by Dodge and Benedict (Subject VI) 1 

 was chosen for repetition work. It is now regretted that diligent 

 effort was not made to secure repeat experiments with the other sub- 

 jects. While not all of the subjects would have been available, it is 

 possible that some of them c ould have been secured for further experi- 



1 Dodge and Benedict, Carnegie Inst. Wash. Pub. No. 232, 1915. 



