July 21, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



103 



There is no more unsatisfactory chapter in 

 the history of physiological psychology than 

 that concerned with the action of alcohol. 

 Most of the work on this subject has been done 

 in the interests either of temperance or " beer," 

 and shows in a striking, at times even in a 

 grotesque, manner the failure so frequent in 

 scientific work carried out with an immediate 

 practical aim. It is therefore a matter for 

 congratulation that the investigation of the 

 physiological and psychological effects of 

 alcohol should have been undertaken by so 

 wholly independent a body as the Carnegie 

 Institution and by an investigator so evidently ■ 

 free from practical as opposed to scientific in- 

 terest as the director of its department of 

 nutrition. 



The book under notice, which is the first- 

 fruits of this research, must be regarded as 

 " survey " rather than " intensive " work, to 

 borrow terms from another science. It covers • 

 an extensive field in which the action of ethyl 

 alcohol is tested on a number of processes in- 

 cluding the patellar and eyelid reflexes ; the re- 

 action of the eye to peripheral visual stimuli 

 and the reaction-time in reading; the psycho- 

 galvanic reflex and the process of free associa- 

 tion; the process of memorizing; the sensory 

 threshold for faradaic stimulation, the velocity 

 of eye-movements and of movements of the 

 finger; together with observations on pulse- 

 rate made concurrently with the other investi- 

 gations. 



The main result of the work is to show that 

 wherever alcohol has an appreciable action, it 

 is on the average depressing, and that this 

 effect is greater on the simple motor, sensory 

 and reflex processes than on those in which 

 the higher parts of the nervous system are more 

 directly involved. 



The aim of the work has been to test the in- 

 fluence of alcohol upon a series of neuro- 

 muscular processes. The authors have chosen 

 for this purpose processes which they believe 

 to be simple and customary with the avowed 

 aim of excluding such factors as practise and 

 interest. They hardly seem to have realized 

 that the factors thus excluded are just those 



which from the title of the book we should 

 expect to find the special object of study. The 

 research is really one on neuro-muscular proc- 

 ess preliminary to the study of the psycho- 

 logical effects of alcohol rather than such a 

 study itself. 



It is a question how far the authors have 

 succeeded in their efforts to attain the simple. 

 It is unfortunate, with this end in view, that 

 they should have chosen the knee-jerk, for 

 though this reaction is now generally regarded 

 as a reflex, it is one of a very special kind, de- 

 pending as it does upon a condition of mus- 

 cular extension. Still less appropriate from 

 this point of view are the observations which 

 the authors have, not very happily, named 

 after the process of reciprocal innervation and 

 have regarded as tests of muscular coordina- 

 tion. It is unfortunate that in their search for 

 the simple they should have chosen a process 

 in which the examination of reciprocal inner- 

 vation in Sherrington's sense involves a highly 

 elaborate process of cortical activity. They 

 have also departed widely from their principle 

 of customary reaction for the movement of 

 the finger which they measure is one of a 

 highly artificial and unusual kind. 



The foregoing criticisms are concerned with 

 the general choice of the means by which 

 neuro-muscular activity has been tested. With 

 regard to the methods employed for this pur- 

 pose the chief criticism to be offered is that 

 the authors have depended too much on the 

 time-relations of the processes they study and 

 too little on their accuracy and on the ade- 

 quacy with which the movements fulfil their 

 functions. Otherwise little objection can be 

 raised to the technique of the observations. 

 In such survey work in which a number of 

 subjects were employed, it was perhaps im- 

 possible to regulate their lives more completely 

 and thus bring the research nearer to the ideal 

 of the method of difference, but this regula- 

 tion should not be neglected in more intensive 

 work. Similarly, the disuse of control-mix- 

 tures is of little importance in work from 

 which psychological factors have been so 

 largely excluded, but it is to be hoped that this 

 precedent will not be followed when psycho- 



