August 3, 19 16] 



NATURE 



465 



(i) The preparation of a national inventory of 

 equipment for research, of the men engaged in it, 

 and of the lines of investigation pursued in co- 

 operating Government bureaux, educational insti- 

 tutions, research foundations, and industrial 

 research laboratories ; this inventory- to be pre- 

 pared in harmony with any general plan adopted 

 by the proposed Government Council of National 

 Defence. 



(2) The preparation of reports by special com- 

 mittees, suggesting important research problems 

 and favourable opportunities for research in 

 various departments of science. 



(3) The promotion of co-operation in research, 

 with the object of securing increased efficiency; 

 but with careful avoidance of any attempt at coer- 

 cion or interference with individual freedom and 

 initiative. 



(4) Co-operation with educational institutions, 

 by supporting their efforts to secure larger funds 

 and more favourable conditions for the pursuit of 

 research and the training of students in the 

 methods and spirit of investigation. 



(5) Co-operation with research foundations and 

 other agencies desiring to secure a more effective 

 use of funds available for investigation. 



(6) The encouragement in co-operating labora- 

 tories of researches designed to strengthen the 

 national defence and to render the United States 

 independent of foreign sources of supply liable to 

 be affected by w^ar. 



Co-operating Bodies. — Arrangements have been 

 made which assure the Council of the hearty co- 

 operation and Fupport of members of the Cabinet 

 and other officers of the Government; the officers 

 of many national societies ; the heads of the 

 larger universities and research foundations; and 

 a long list of the leading investigators in Govern- 

 ment bureaux, research foundations, industrial 

 research laboratories, and educational institutions. 

 From the cordial interest shown by all those 

 who have learned of the work in its preliminary 

 stages, it is evident that as soon as a widespread 

 request for co-operation can be extended it will 

 meet with general acceptance. ' 



Edwin G. Conklin, 



Simon Flexner, 



Robert A. Millikan, 



Arthur A. Noves, 



George Ellery Hale, Chairman. 

 {Organising Committee.) 



PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL.^ 



THE literature on the alcohol question is 

 already vast, but it promises to be bigger 

 still if the ambitious programme of Prof. F. G. 

 Benedict and his colleagues is accomplished to the 

 full. It must be more than thirty years ago that, 

 feeling the tyrannv of the ultra-teetotal party in 

 America, the late Prof. Atwater founded a famous 

 committee with the object of freeing, at any rate, 



1 "Psychological Efifects of Alcohol: an Experimental Inve«dearion of 

 the Effect of Moderate Doses of Ethyl-alcohol on a Related Group of 

 Nenro-muscular Processes in Man." By Raymond Dodge nnd Francis G. 

 Benedict. Pp. 281+ 32 figures. (Carnegie Institution of Washington. Pub- 

 lication No. 252- igi5-) Price 2.50 dollars. 



NO. 2440, VOL. 97] 



the scientific section of the community from the 

 limitations of opinion and research on the question 

 which the so-called temperance party sought to 

 impose upon them. Excellent work they did, but 

 in the intervening years the methods of research 

 have been so improved that the work of that com- 

 mittee urgently needed revision. So in January, 

 1913, Prof. Benedict invited the co-operation of 

 physiologists throughout the world to share in a 

 gigantic investigation of the numerous problems 

 presented by the dietetic use of alcoholic beve- 

 rages, and obtained sympathetic answers from a 

 large number of eminent people in all countries. 

 In the present volume a long list is given of these, 

 and grateful acknowledgment is made of friendly, 

 helpful letters from the majority of them. 



This appears to have completed the measure of 

 their co-operation, and Prof. Benedict, so far as 

 actual work is concerned, has been left to tread 

 an almost lonely furrow. The brochure from the 

 pen of himself and Dr. R. Dodge deals only with 

 quite a limited branch of the subject, but the 

 results obtained are of considerable imjxjrtance. 

 The experiments wxre f>erformed with moderate 

 doses of alcohol (30 to 45 cc), and were carried 

 out with great perfection of technique and with 

 proper controls. The majority of the subjects 

 were normal young men, a few were psycho- 

 pathic owing to previous misuse of alcohol, fewer 

 still were the number of actual teetotalers who 

 consented to lend themselves to the experiment, 

 and one only was a confirmed heavy drinker ; the 

 results obtained with him can be left out of 

 account, as he soon rebelled against a limitation 

 of his usual supply of whisky. Otherwise, with 

 differences in detail, the main results were the 

 same in all cases. 



The principal question investigated was whether or 

 not these small doses of alcohol produced any delay 

 of, or interference with, various neuro-muscular 

 processes, and the selected processes were some 

 of them simple, such as the knee jerk, others more 

 complex, such as reflexes, in which the eyes were 

 concerned, and others, still more complicated, in- 

 volved mental operations, such as association of 

 ideas and memory. Electrocardiograms and pulse 

 records were also taken, and the cardiac accelera- 

 tion noted was found to be due to a depression 

 of the inhibiting mechanism. The answer to the 

 main inquiry is certainly a rather unexpected one, 

 so Insistent are the claims of the teetotalers that 

 even a moderate drinker is putting an enemy into 

 his mouth to steal away his brains. For it was 

 found that, whereas these small doses of the drug 

 depressed the simplest reflex actions, such as the 

 knee jerk, the more complex the neural arc in- 

 volved in a reflex, the less was this effect mani- 

 fested, whilst in operations involving mental work 

 and memory the effect was either nil or an im- 

 provement was noted. In other words, the lower 

 centres {e.g., the vagus centre and the knee-jerk 

 centre in the lumbar cord) are depressed most, and 

 the highest least. " If alcohol had selectively nar- 

 cotised the higher centres it would have been used 

 as an anaesthetic centuries ago." W. D. H. 



