DISCOVERY 



107 



The Measurement of Emotion. Bv \V. \\'hately Smith, 

 MA. (Kegan Paul, los. 6d.) 



It has been known for some time that the resistance 

 ofiered by the human skin to the passage of a faint 

 electric current varies sharply with changes within the 

 body, and in particular with the presence or absence of an 

 emotional state ; this latter concurrence is known as the 

 " ps^-cho-galvanic reflex," and some rather distoited 

 accounts of it have appeared in the daily Press. 



In order to excite an emotional reaction for the purpose 

 of stud3ing it, a verj' con\enient method is the word 

 association reaction of Dr. Carl Jung, in which a number 

 of words are called out, one by one, to the subject of the 

 experiment, who is required to answer with the first word 

 that comes into his head. Some idea of the emotion, if 

 any, excited by the word can be obtained by consideration 

 of the character of the answer and of the rapidity or 

 delay in making it. Further information is obtained by 

 mejisuring the disturbance produced in the galvanometric 

 circuit in which the object is included, by calling out the 

 word. 



ilr. \Miately Smith finds good reason for concluding that 

 the electric disturbance is proportional to the intensity 

 of the emotion, and by combining the very delicate and 

 measurable psycho-galvanic reflex with the word associa- 

 tion reaction (for the first time systematically and over 

 a very large number of observations), he has obtained some 

 extremelv important results. In the first place he has 

 made a contribution to pure psychology- in throwing new 

 light upon the nature of " affective tone " (the undiffer- 

 entiated state behind the emotions that is elaborated into 

 " pleasant " or " unpleasant " feeling) ; in the second 

 place the findings made by the exact and quantitative 

 galvanometric method have refined and made more 

 reliable the word association reaction as an instrument 

 of diagnosis — a matter of considerable importance to the 

 practising psychologist. In the last chapter the author 

 formulates a theory of the nature of emotion (or, more 

 exactly, of " affective tone ") that he has built upon the 

 experimental results. 



The theorv postulates that we live continually in a state 

 of inhibition, that is to say, our immediate impulses to 

 action, which are naturally for the most part unconscious, 

 tend to be subjected to a greater or lesser degree of 

 repression or postponement. According to the author, 

 an increase of this repression gives rise to a negative 

 affective tone, and this, if we become conscious of it, 

 to a feeling of discomfort. A decrease in inhibition gives 

 rise simiUarly to a positive afl^ective tone and a feeling of 

 " pleasure." From this we may deduce the somewhat 

 melancholy conclusion that while there is scarcely a limit 

 to pain and discomfort, happiness has a definite term — 

 could it be reached — in absolute freedom.. In connection 

 with this dependence of pleasurable feeling tone upon 

 freedom from constraint and conflict, it is perhaps worth 

 noting the strong pleasurable feeling experienced in the 

 typical dream of flying — a dream to which the Freudian 

 school of psychology' has given a somewhat narrow sexual 

 interpretation. 



Mr. \Vhately Smith's theorj- has a close parallel in many 



of the normal physiological processes of the body, which 

 under ordinary' conditions are kept stable by the balance 

 of two opposing influences ; and the theory is completely 

 congruous with the conception of man's psychological 

 evolution along the lines indicated by MacDougal' ; and 

 with Freud's theory of man's development from the 

 " Pleasure-pain Principle " to the " Reality Principle." 



Although The ^leasurement of Emotion is a book 

 primarily for the specialist, yet it should prove of great 

 value to anyone interested in psychology and familiar 

 with the current theories ; while the precision of the 

 author's methods, and the ingenious system of checking 

 and controlling the results, form an object-lesson in 

 psychological research and a contrast to the somewhat 

 tenuous fabric upon which not a few modern psychological 

 theories have been constructed. 



F. A. Hampton. 



Protein Therapy and Xon-specific Resistance. By 

 W. F. Petersen, M.D., with an Introduction by 

 J. L. Miller, M.D. (New York : The MacmUlan 



Co., 215.) 



Twenty years ago a textbook of medicine was apt to 

 give forty or more drugs as useful in one particular ail- 

 ment. To-day, it rarely gives more than two or three ; 

 a multiplicitj' of "curative " prescriptions always argues 

 that all are futile to efifect a cure or incapable of modif}T.ng 

 a natural cure. This tendency arises in part from the 

 recognition of a very few drugs which appear, quite 

 definitely, to have a specific effect in particular conditions. 

 Many of these drugs were used from antiquity — for 

 example, zinc compounds are used to-day in certain eye 

 conditions, and were used in ancient Egypt with equal 

 success and equal ignorance as to the theoretical basis 

 of their peculiar \'irtue. Some few are the result of 

 laborious laboratory research ; others, such as quinine 

 and digitalis, were country simples or native remedies 

 before they were dignified by elevation to the Pharma- 

 copoeia. In all, the specific drugs — those that have a 

 selective effect in curing one particular condition — are very 

 few in number. But their existence has influenced medical 

 opinion ; the search is always for a means of countering 

 each individual foe with its single and appropriate 

 weapon. If anyone needs further proof of this, let him 

 compare the size of a hospital pharmacopceia — a book for 

 the vest pocket and practical purposes — with the British 

 Pharmacopoeia — a book for the fireside, if not for the 

 fire! 



But the greatest single influence in this direction has come 

 from the important work which Sir Almroth Wright and 

 his numberless followers have done in establishing the 

 principle of Vaccine Therapy. The method and its 

 theoretical basis may be briefly outlined. Suppose that 

 a bacterium has established itself in the nose, and we 

 suffer, consequently, from colds in the head. Some of these 

 bacteria are taken, and grown in a medium which is found 

 suitable ; they are then killed, by heat or chemical means, 

 and injected into the arm. Whereas, before, the in- 

 fection, localised in one small part of the body, did not 

 I Social Psychology. (Methuen & Co., Ltd.) 



