The Blood Ptosis Test. 



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73 (1005) 



The blood ptosis test and its use in experimental work in hygiene. 



By C. Ward Crampton. 



[From the Department of Education, New York City, Bureau of 

 Educational Hygiene.] 



The modern health campaign has three parts. 



1. The cure of disease, 



2. The direct prevention of disease by sanitation, quarantine, 



instruction in hygiene, and the like, and 



3. Euthenics. 



This last includes physical training, play, and all measures calcu- 

 lated to increase resistance to disease and bodily efficiency. 



The success of health and vitality increasing measures is 

 difficult to estimate on account of the lack of tests. It is possible 

 to measure the result of long-continued activities such as physical 

 training, gymnastics, play, athletics, and good ventilation on the 

 one hand, and fatigue-producing activities, such as school life of 

 various kinds, on the other hand, by noting the increase or decrease 

 of incidence of disease, and absence from school, and the percentage 

 of hemoglobin, etc. These tests are difficult to control because 

 they take a long time, and other factors cannot always be success- 

 fully eliminated or controlled. It is highly desirable to obtain 

 some test of some important body function which will show clearly 

 and rapidly by its variations, the beneficial or depressive effect 

 of various conditions supposed to affect health. Such a test will 

 be useful in proportion to the importance of the function tested 

 and its accuracy in recording the variations of this function. 



The following test promises to fulfill these conditions. It is 

 well known that the splanchnic veins are very capacious, and if 

 vaso-tone is relaxed, they fill at the expense of the rest of the body. 

 The vaso control of the splanchnic area is in man, comparatively 

 recently adjusted to the erect position. As such, it is easily 

 wearied and easily damaged by unhygienic influences which 

 decrease the efficiency of the sympathetic nervous system. The 

 efficiency of this control is, I believe, measured by placing the 



