122 Effect of Alcohol on Psycho-Physiological Functions. 



24 hours of a day. It of course varies with excitement, exercise, and 

 relaxation and also with ingestion of food. Other things being equal, 

 it is highest after meals and presumably the pulse follows these fluctua- 

 tions with fair approximation. In a laboratory session, which comes 

 between meals and lasts 3 to 5 hours with the subject under uniform 

 conditions that demand but slight activity, the metabolism theoreti- 

 cally should decline; pulse records taken frequently and at homologous 

 points in the periods should therefore naturally show some progressive 

 decrease in rate aside from any change due to psychic factors, such as a 

 growing familiarity with the experimental environment. Both series 

 of experiments, particularly the former, have thoroughly demonstrated 

 this normal decline in pulse rate which probably has its basis in a change 

 in metabolism. After the first period on alcohol days there was an 

 energy intake of dose A, 30 c.c. approximately 260 calories, or of dose 

 B, 45 c.c, about 390 calories, and the pulse following was found to be 

 relatively faster than on normal days, when occasionally a control dose 

 of cereal " coffee" was employed. The specific effect of alcohol on the 

 total metabolism has not been conclusively established, but there 

 appears to be slightly more evidence for a small rise than for a fall after 

 alcohol. 1 Hence, in the absence of definite proof to the contrary, the 

 pulse changes with it are such as to raise the question whether they are 

 not due to normal metabolism phenomena rather than to so-called drug 

 action. 



RESPIRATION DATA. 



As respiration records were also incorporated with the pulse records, 

 some attention should be given these from the standpoint of a possible 

 effect of alcohol upon the respiration rate. In the Tentative Plan 2 the 

 effect of alcohol upon respiration-rate was but a small part of the pro- 

 posed respiration section, and our data can be regarded as only sup- 

 plementary. In the first place, it must be said that Subject VI was 

 naturally very irregular in his breathing. Dr. Carpenter 3 for this cause 

 found him quite unsatisfactory as a subject in some respiration experi- 

 ments. In our pulse and respiration records there are frequently 

 intervals of apnea; a record of this type is shown in C, figure 11 (see p. 

 96). That the apparatus for recording the respiration was not insen- 

 sitive is proved by the fact that the pulse shows very clearly in the 



curve. 



The average length of the respiration in seconds for the different days 

 and the different periods of pre-tetanus and post-tetanus pulse is shown 

 in table 24. Naturally the respiration curve could not be interpreted 

 during the moments of tetanus. Fro m the normal data in the upper 



i Carpenter, Am. Journ. Physiol., 1917, 42, p. 605; Higgins, Journ. Pharm. and Exp. Ther., 



1917 9, p. 441. 



tentative plan for a proposed investigation into the physiological action of ethyl alcohol in 

 man, Boston, 1913; reprinted in Dodge and Benedict's report as Appendix I (see p. 269). 



3 Carpenter, Carnegie Inst. Wash. Pub. No. 216, 1915. 



