Coordination Test of "Tapping." 6i 



would be found possible to alter, by intestinal manipulation, the 

 threshold of reflexes of more vital importance to the animal than 

 flexion and crossed-extension. Porter has shown that the vaso- 

 motor center is still in active operation in shock; it is by no 

 means exhausted. It is still capable of giving as great percentile 

 changes of blood pressure as before. It might still turn out to be 

 true, however, that following intestinal manipulation the center 

 is more inaccessible than before to the nerve impulses which 

 ordinarily play upon it and properly control its activities. The 

 writer hopes to test this out in the near future. At any rate it is 

 evident that intestinal manipulation sends impulses to the central 

 nervous system which disturb its normal functioning, and Crile's 

 contention that such impulses should be prohibited from their 

 pernicious activity would seem to be justified. 



145 (1323) 



On the influence of some antipyretics on the neuro-muscular 

 coordination test of "tapping." 



By David I. Macht, S. Isaacs and J. P. Greenberg. 



[From the Pharmacological and Psychological Laboratories of Johns 

 Hopkins University.] 



In connection with a psycho-pharmacological study of the 

 antipyretics including observations on their effect on the reaction- 

 time, blood pressure, vision, and hearing, some observations were 

 made on the influence of these drugs on the well-known psycho- 

 logical coordination test of "tapping." This test consists briefly 

 in the continuous tapping by the subject with a brass stylus upon 

 a brass plate so adjusted that each tap or contact of the stylus 

 on the brass plate is electrically registered on a counter. The 

 number of taps made over a definite period of time is a rough 

 index of the neuro-muscular coordination of the arm muscles. 

 In the present investigation, observations were made upon the 

 authors and occasionally on other subjects. The subject was 

 required to tap continuously for three minutes at a time, and the 

 number of taps registered was noted at the end of each minute. 

 Having noted the normal tapping number in any one experiment, 



