The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-07-04
REGISTERS NERVES
 AND TESTS EMOTION
No Secrets Can Be Withheld From Delicate Apparatus Perfected By English
 Scientist

London, July 8.-(lteciprocal NEWS svhN- ice.)--on one occasion an American sol dor who looked as If he had been be- hind the door wher the nerves were given out" whose face would have shown no sign If cartload of dynamite had | exploded at his elbow, was induced to | be the subject of an experiment by pr A. D. Waller, the physicist He was asked to write down list Of twelve l eirls' names including the name of the l girl to whom he was engaged and Dr. ] Waller proceeded to read out the list. The soldiers face was inpassive, with no sign of interest, or agitation or nervousness anywhere, but the machine had, found out the truth first guess, How was it done?
 Every time we feel anything, want anything, feel excited about anything, we send out an emotion of nervous erergy starting from the brain and spinal chord and gradually Altering through our bodies and into every nook and cranny of our limbs. We see this working when a girl bushes. Something or other, a thought, the sight of per son has set up a storm Of nervous energy in her brain and it pours along every nerve as if it were an electric current; some of the nerves end III the minute little blood vessels under the skin | os the face and when the emotion arrives | there it produces a change in their struc- | the same way other nerves end up in | the sweat glands of the hand and the nervous energy rushes through to these and makes a change in their nature and they secrete a minute quantity Of mois- | ture.
 l Iris is a simple and well-known fact but pr. Waller was the first to think out a way of turning it to practical
 use With simple electrical apparatus he has been able to measure the change in the nerves in the hand and so devise a means of gaugng the nervous energy
 set loose in a person by any given stlmu- lus The patient is attached to appara- tus which measures the change of resis- tance in the hand to an electric currents the ends of an electric wire are fixed to the palm and the back of the hand, at
 the other end of the wire is a galvano-
 meter on which shines very bright light
 so that a spot of light is reflected from the galvanometer onto graduated scale The resistance is regulated 50 that the scale is marked at O, then Dr,
 Waller with a scientists detachment tells
 his victim that he is going to stick a lpin into him; immediately nervous energy Lis generated in the victims brain. rushea
 along the nerves of his body, some of il : reaches the glands on the surface of his kand. The resistance to the electric cur.
 rent is modified the galvanometer swings
  , light on the scale moves up from tc
 50.
 , The great value of the instrument : lies in it's extreme delcacy. The av , craze healthy person would show nc z visible sign of agitation at the idea o
 helng pricked, but nevertheless there II z an invisible amount of agitation an'
 the electric instrument reveals II
 Thus our friend, the American soldier . lmight show nervous discharge indi , cated by 10 for most of the names , perhaps one of them is his sister
 name, and the greater amount Of eX citement would consequently be indi
 cated by 20, but what happens whe
 the one and only name is read out :. First he hears the name, then it call up all sorts of exciting memories, the :. he feels, T must be careful not to giV ' if away" and all these added togethe = proGuce much more nervous excitemen
 than the other names, and as resul the spot of light goes up to 50 and tn
 secret is out.
 In the subsequent experiments tha l. it was my privilege to make with Di e Walters apparatus, many importan
 adaptations suggested themselves. Flo . example when I was myself attache q to the indicator, Dr. Waller read ou to me some score of miscellaneou H words waiting for the effect on m X nerves to be indicated and the spot E light to sink back to o before readinl K the next word; the effect was of vary ing intensity and the spot of ligh p moved up and down between 10 and \ until Dr. Waller read out word whic to the onlooker would have had no dlt fcrent effect from the rest lmmedi atelv the indicating mark rushed ava to 20, 50, 100, and so right off the scale finally having to be coaxed back b h tapping the galvanometer Why tn | trainstorm? I was able to give per feet explanation; the word aroused i n:e most irritating feelings havin \ been used by a man who had violentl attacked a book of mine; but in ordi nary circumstances no one would hay H seen my composure was ruffled.
 Fl Now we have here one more valua ble aid to criminal inves estigatlons, fo
 the instrument could well be made \ out-Sherlock Sherlock Holmes. SuI \ pose several people are suspected of a theft; they are one by one subjected t
 test Having been attached to tn \ indicator score of words are read \ t them as above, the list being care 5 fully made to contain words which tn \ thief will associate with his crim | Thus. jewelry has been stolen from ' box which also contained some otht | object, say stick of rouge The wor
 rouge" will recall to the thief the fac ' that he opened the box, removed tn v jewels and left the rouge behind, I \ the innocent, srouge" conveys nothin \ of any great interest. As a result tn ' thief will show much more nervor ' emotion when he hears the word req U out and when other suitable word \ show like result the guilt may ! | finally established.
 How delicate the work accomplishe II can be is seen from one case which | investigated The patient was a gi
 whose brother had been killed in tn II war shortly before. To the casual ot | server she showed no sign of depres
 sion, but went about her work with he H accustomed serenity In d list of woro \ reae out to her three were connecte N with her brothers death. and thoug sEe never consciously affected the cor nection, the increased emotion regis \ tered proved that she had done so UT | consciously Thus We have here 2 me ans of ascertaining feelings so deli N cate that they are apparent to the ir | dlcator before they have become ir
 tense enough to stir the consciousne'
 of the person feeling them.
 E Of all the experiments carried out \ Dr. Waller, none is so startling in II n result as that concerning "shel shock" case. The soldier sufferin H from this form of nervous breakdow X was rendered completely deaf and dunn H by his trouble That does not mea Aifhat fhera. xaz anythinp the matte