The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-01-12
MEASURING THE SENSES.
Instruments Which Gauge Pain Emo
ton and Nervousness.
New York Trbl

For testing nervousness and emotional
sensibiEty in child instrument called
conducted among the New Work school
children. Just above the pulse little rub
Der bellows is attached, so that the beat
ings of the artery send little currents of air
through a rubber tube connected with the
bellows. tiny lever is actuated by these
puffs Of air, and the rhythm of the pulse
beats are recorded by lines upon a revolv-
ing drum. The child is then addressed sharp
ly or startled by an unexpected noise.
Immediately the heart beats more rap
idly for a short period of time, and the
duration and strength Of the stronger pulse
beats are recorded upon the drum. An &C
curate record of the child's nervousness is
thus obtained. and from great many
records an average can be struck. A child
shown by the plethismograph to be highly
nervous might be seriously injured by pun
ishment, which would cause only passing
Inconvenience to a normally healthy child.
Such data would be valuable to a teacher
who could regulate punishment according to
the quality of the mental fibre Of the Of
making "the punishment fit the crime" is
improved upon by the plethismograph
which makes it fit both the crime and the
Hearing eyesight and the senses of
taste and smell are also being tested in
children, so that an average can be struck
investigations show that out of 10000
school children examined, the higher grades
possess much greater proportion of de-
fective eyesight than the lower. This
methods an increase in the number of
studies results in poorer eyesight.
Of the children examined about per
cent have defective hearing, though in
many cases not aware of 1t themselves
Such children should have front places in
a class room, and a preliminary paidohogi-
cal examination would provide for this
DR.. Shaw has invented an instrument
which determines accurately the speed at
clock from which wires lead to the end of
a pencil When the pencil touches the
writing tablet the circuit is closed and
the clock begins to register the time. AS
soon as the pencil is removed the clock
stops, and the time it has been running
shows the speed of the cfilds writing
To make the test the letters "g'' and
% are employed, each of which the child
writes six times. These letters are chosen
because they are the letters of the al
phabet which takes respectively the long
est and shortest time to make. There have
been thousands of children tested in this
manner by outside teachers cooperating
with the School Of Pedagogy, and their
average shows the writing speed of a child
of normal ability.
If girl should be found as is anticipa-
ted, to form muscular habits sooner than
boys. and thus acquire a style of writing
sooner, some important changes will be
made in the present mode of instruction.
To measure ability to stand pain an in
strument called an algometer is used The
amount Of pain a child can bear is a fairly
good criterion of its general sensitiveness.
The instrument resembles small pump
with spring balance in the handle. A
piston, with metal disc about the size of
silver quarter on one end, projects from
the tube. The disc is pressed against the
temporal muscle = { the child's forehead I'M
til slight pain is felt The amount of
pressure. exerted to produce this effect is
gauge, and shows the sensitiveness of the
child.