i86 



NATURE 



[April 7, 192 1 



metric deflections. The emotive response in its un- 

 mistakable form as a sharp movement occurring about 

 two seconds after its exciting cause is always in one 

 direction, i.e. in the direction of decreased resistance 

 — increased permeability, poro-dilatation or, if you 

 prefer to think it so, contraction of living matter 

 round pores so as to dilate them. And in many 

 thousands of observations I have never witnessed any 

 similar movement in the opposite direction — i.e. in 

 the direction of increased resistance. All that is ever 

 seen in that direction is the gradual remission of a 

 previous deflection in the emotive or excitatory direc- 

 tion. If you regard the question in its psychological 

 aspect, you will soon be satisfied that the matter 

 could not be expected to come out otherwise. Our 

 pleasures and pains are not simple opposites producing 

 opposite physiological effects. Pains are active and 

 exciting. states in our conscious life, sharply contrast- 

 ing with their background. Pleasure is more often 

 merely the subsidence and relief from pain, a 

 gradual recovery of the untroubled state. A pin-prick 

 suddenly excites emotion, and the emotion gradually 

 falls to rest. There is no counterpart pleasure equal 

 and opposite to a pin-prick. Pleasure is of necessity 

 gradual. Too sudden pleasure — joy, as we call it — 

 is exciting, and causes discharge down the nerves 

 that acts precisely like painful excitements and 

 gives rise to electrical effects in the same emotive 

 direction. 



14. We distinguished a few moments ago between 

 imaginatives and positives according as threatened 

 pains produced larger or smaller effects than real 

 pains. It is convenient to draw another kind of 

 distinction according to the extent of body-surface 

 over which the response is manifested. The response 

 to "weak" stimuli in the great majority of men and 

 women is exclusively palmar (and plantar). But with 

 "strong" stimuli, and in certain cases with "weak" 

 stimuli as well, the response can also be manifested 

 by the forearm (and by the leg) as well as by the 

 hand (and foot). Such cases may be designated as 

 "sensitives" to distinguish them from the others 

 who are relatively insensitive, but since these others 

 are in a majority, and it would seem inappropriate 

 to designate the majority of mankind as insensitive, 

 it is better to call them "normals." These two 

 labels, "sensitives" and "normals," are not intended 

 to imply any division into two hard-and-fast categories, 

 but rather a scale of differences grading between two 

 extremes. Indeed, I have satisfied myself in at least 

 one case that a subject classified at a first sitting as 

 "normal" was temporarily raised to the degree of 

 "sensitive" in consequence of a rather violent fit of 

 "temper." 



It is convenient to reserve the designation 

 "insensitive" for cases low down in the norrrj^l 

 scale, giving in response to ordinary stimuli little or 

 no palmar reaction — i.e. a doubtful response of the 

 order of i per loo of the initial resistance. 



15. Provisionally, then, our observations can be 



Class. 



I. Sensitives 

 (" Imaginatives ") 

 II. Normals 



III. Insensitives ... 

 (" Positives") 



IV. Others 



Emotive Response, 



Hand. 



Yes 

 Yes 



No 



Forearm. 



Yes 



No 

 No 



Examples. 



Spiritualistic mediums 



and others. 

 The majority of men- 



and women. 

 Pythiatics. " Shell 



shock" cases. 

 "Shell shock" cases 



and others. 



systematised 

 scheme 



in accordance with the following 



Class I. — "Sensitives" giving large responses (lo 

 per cent, or more of the original resistance) from the 

 forearm and from the hand. 



Class II. — "Normals" giving moderately large 

 response (2 to 5 per cent.) from the hand, but little 

 or no response from the forearm. 



Class III. — "Insensitives" giving little or no 

 response (i per cent.) from the hand, and, of course, 

 also the forearm. 



Class IV. — (a) Subjects who, by reason of their state 

 of health, were obviously unfit to undergo examina- 

 tion, and (b) subjects who declared themselves as 

 unable to stand it. 



Subjects of Class I. and Class II. include those 

 who were characterised a moment ago as "imagina- 

 tives." The three spiritualistic mediums to whom I 

 referred just now were included in Class I. 

 Class III. comprises people of duller imagination, or 

 perhaps of firmer fibre, whom we called "positives." 



At this early stage indeed, when the number of 

 properly observed cases is so small and the danger 

 of imperfect observation so great, it seems to me 

 hazardous even to talk about rules and exceptions or 

 to attempt a classification. Nevertheless, if the 

 attempt is made without prejudice, and if the results 

 of observation are recorded in physical units by the 

 side of what in medical parlance is the clinical history 

 of the subject, a preliminary classification is not onl^r 

 permissible, but also necessary. 



Let me again refer to the present attempt and 

 make good the point that we may expect to find the 

 unexpected, that so-called regular results may be 

 exceptional and vice versa. 



16. Pythiatics. — Hysterical subjects or, as they are 

 now called, " pythiatics," men as well as women, seem 

 to be exceedingly sensitive and make a great fuss; 

 but when they have been persuaded to sit still in an 

 armchair and connected up with the galvanometer 

 and tested by ordinary stimuli — pin-prick, false and 

 real ; match-burn, false and real — lo and behold ! they 

 exhibit little or no response. They belong to 

 Class III., that of the "insensitives"; and we are 

 reminded of the fact that in exaggerated — i.e. patho- 

 logical — degree the hysterical or pythiatic state is 

 found to include anaesthesia, loss of sensibility, as a 

 leading symptom. But, of course, more observations 

 are necessary, and more observers. 



The Modern Londoner and Long Barrow Man. 



A T a meeting of the Royal Anthropological Insti- 

 '^^*- tute held on March 8, Prof. F. G. Parsons read 

 a paper on "The Modern Londoner and Long Barrow 

 Man," in which he discussed a claim made by Dr. 

 Macdonell and Prof. Karl Pearson that the head shape 

 of Londoners of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 

 turies was more like that of the Long Barrow men 

 than of any other race. Prof. Par$ons, however, 

 showed, by a detailed comparison of contours obtained 

 NO. 2684, "VOL. 107] 



from thirty male London skulls of the seventeenth and 

 eighteenth centuries dug up in the Clare Market dis- 

 trict, and corresponding with the averages obtained 

 by Dr. Macdonell from his London skulls found at 

 Whitechapel and Moorfields, with those of twenty 

 Long Barrow skulls from Yorkshire, Wiltshire, and 

 Gloucestershire, that in the head measurements, in 

 the depth of the orbital openings, in the length . of 

 the face, and in other anatomical details the London 



