914 



SCIENCE.. 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1122 



The latent time of the eye reaction, that 

 is, the time elapsing between the disappear- 

 ance of the fixation point to the movement 

 of the eye appropriate to the stimulus, 

 was increased 5 per cent. In other words, 

 the reaction was distinctly delayed. 



In the speech reaction tests, in which the 

 subject was asked to pronounce a word 

 shown in the exposure apparatus, the latent 

 time was increased 3 per cent. 



Memory and the free association were 

 only slightly affected. The sensitivity to 

 faradic stimulation was decreased 14 per 

 cent, after alcohol, that is, the threshold 

 was raised, a stronger shock being required 

 to stimulate. In the motor coordinations 

 the number of finger movements in 6 sec- 

 onds decreased 9 per cent, with alcohol, and 

 the velocity of the eye movement through 

 an arc of 40° decreased 11 per cent., i. e., 

 there was a decrease in velocity both of 

 finger movement and of eye-movement. 

 Thus we see that all the tests thus far 

 show a distinct depressive action of alco- 

 hol, a minimum effect being observed in the 

 more highly organized processes, such as 

 memory and the free association. 



The large number of pulse observations 

 made during mental work and during mod- 

 erate physical work showed invariably a 

 relative acceleration of the pulse ; this is in 

 striking contrast to the general depression 

 of the neuro-muscular processes at all levels 

 of the cerebro-spinal system. To make this 

 clear, it should be stated that during the 

 sessions of a normal day the pulse rate 

 would tend to decrease with fair regularity 

 from hour to hour. For example, the aver- 

 age pulse rate for the first half hour might 

 be 80 per minute and the rate might de- 

 crease until the average for the last half 

 hour would be 62 per minute. On the nor- 

 mal days this picture is very clear. On the 

 alcohol days this decrease is not nearly so 

 large as on normal days. In no instance is 



the pulse rate higher at the end of the day 

 than at the beginning, but the normal drop 

 does not occur. In other words, we have 

 here distinct evidence of a relative accelera- 

 tion. Under all conditions of moderate 

 mental and physical work the pulse rate 

 after alcohol did not fall to so low a level 

 as it would have fallen without alcohol. 



Summarizing the effect of alcohol we 

 find, then, that the two reflexes showed a 

 distinct lengthening in the latent time of 

 10 per cent, for the patellar reflex and 7 

 per cent, for the lid reflex, a decrease in 

 the muscle thickening for the patellar reflex 

 of 46 per cent, and in the extent of the lid 

 movement of 19 per cent. ; the sensory 

 threshold was raised 14 per cent. ; the two 

 motor coordinations showed a decreased 

 action under alcohol of approximately 10 

 per cent. ; the two elaborated reaction times 

 of the eye and speech organs showed 

 changes of 5 and 3 per cent, respectively, 

 and the memory and free association were 

 unaffected. The natural grouping of these 

 processes is too consistent to be accidental. 

 It is confirmatory evidence of the reliabil- 

 ity of our results that similar processes gave 

 similar results. Furthermore in the eases 

 in which there are comparable data it is 

 shown that in 5 out of 6 processes the 

 greater average effect was the result of the 

 larger dose. 



It is surprising that the higher processes 

 were apparently not so much affected as 

 the reflexes, but it is significant that the 

 greatest, most persistent change incidental 

 to the ingestion of alcohol is in those proc- 

 esses which are most distinctly exempt 

 from voluntary reinforcement or voluntary 

 control. The higher senses alone show 

 capacity for autogenic reinforcement. This 

 we noted several times in the progress of 

 our experimenting. One most striking illus- 

 tration was when one of the subjects, dur- 

 ing the association test, went to sleep for a 



