LABORATORY TESTS 123 



Schillings, who acted as subject in those tests, had to be 

 eliminated from the ranks of appropriate subjects on 

 account of the increasing inhibitions, which' gradually 

 developed as described on page 120. 



Analysis of such curves is rather difficult, and those 

 of different subjects cannot be directly compared. It is 

 necessary to make a study of the normal curve of each 

 subject taken when his affective state could be described 

 as " indifferent ". The influences of the purely physi- 

 ological processes, such as pulse * and respiration, must 

 also be determined. And even so, an interpretation of 

 the curve becomes possible only when a large mass of 

 material is at hand, and when the introspections of the 

 subject are taken into consideration. The following 

 remarks, therefore, are not based solely upon the illus- 

 trations given, but upon the mass total of my results. 



In beginning our analysis, let us take first the breathing 

 curve. Our results here were quite in accord with the 

 view taken by Zoneff and Meumann,^" who believe that 

 in the respiration is to be found a good index of the 

 affective tone of the subject's mental state. In the 

 greater number of cases it was possible to conclude as to 



* Slight head movements accompanying the pulse-beat were until re- 

 cently regarded as the symptom of certain diseases of the vascular 

 system (the so-called symptom of Nusset), but H. Frenkel has now 

 shown them to exist also in normal individuals.^' I myself discovered 

 such movements (lateral as well as sagittal) more or less pronounced in 

 all the curves obtained from my subjects. The most striking case was 

 that of a young physician whose circulatory system was perfectly healthy. 

 In most instances I was able to note these oscillatory movements 

 directly and to count them without much difficulty. For purposes of 

 control the radial pulse was always determined at the same time. The 

 observation of the phenomenon appears to be especially easy in the 

 case of somewhat full-blooded individuals. 



