Evening star., 1941-07-17
Of Stars, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Laboratory, Field
And Study
Bu Thomas r. Henrg.

Two Yale professors have just invent
ed a robot detective to trap "drunks."
Equipped with this machine, they say,
any policeman can measure with ex-
treme accuracy in eight minutes the
amount of alcohol in persons expired
breath and it can be made into perma
nent record to be presented as evidence
in court. The amount in the breath de-
pends on the concentration in the blood
and several States now make this the
criterion of intoxication, regardless Of
how one acts.
Drs. Leon A. Greenberg, phySiologist
and Frederick w. Keator, mechanical
engineer, co-operated in devising the
robot They call it an alcoholmeter.
In the past, they say in report to the
Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol,
1t has been necessary to collect sample
of blood or urine from the suspected
drunk and send 1t to police chemical
laboratory for analysis. Services of a
skilled chemist were required. The CO.
operation of the prisoner was necessary.
Many courts frowned on bleeding man
against his will. Samples were likely to
be lost between the police station and the
laboratory.
A common method of determining al
cohol concentration has been by means
of the reaction of the drug with chem
ical compound known as iodine pent-
oxide. When a solution containing al
cohol is brought in contact with this it
releases iodine from the compound. The
amount of iodine released, providing the
temperature is kept constant, is directly
proportional to the amount of alcohol
present.
A skilled chemist has been required
to measure the amount of released
iodine.
With the alcoholmeter the subject, at
policeman's request, breaths into a
tube and 100 cubic centimeters of ex-
pired breath automatically is trapped.
The air then is brought in contact
with the pentoxide. The released iodine
potassium iodine in another tube. This
is blue in color and the more iodine is
freed the bluer it becomes.
Beams of filtered light are passed
through the solution and fall on photo
electric cell as they pass through. The
amount of light getting through de-
pends on the blueness. The photo
electric cell operates a meter which
either can be observed visually or ar
ranged to make an automatic recording
The only skill needed to operate the
alcoholmeter the inventors say, is to be
able to read and push button. The
recordings are extremely accurate and
are not subject to question, as might
be the findings Of police chemist.
The machine is quite light and can
easily be carried in a police car to the
scene of an accident. 1t is so rugged,
the inventors say, that it can stand very
rough treatment and it is so constructed
with interlocking controls that unfair
manipulation would be impossible.
The Yale professors themselves do not
say what degree of alcohol concentra-
ton in the breath indicates drunken
ness. Upon this there has been much
dispute among Psychologists. They leave
States or municipalities to fix the
amount by law. The robot serves what
ever law may be in force.
The apparatus is most accurate, they
say, in the middle ranges of alcohol con-
centration in which any questionable
cases of intoxication would fall.
Il
The dreaded cirrhosis of the liver of
bathtub gin days, frequent in alcoholics
and often attributed to too much bad
liquor, was probably due primarily to bad
diets.
This finding has just been reported
from experiments with rats by Drs. R.
D. Lille, F. S. Daft and w. H. Sebrell
of the nutrition division of the United
States Public Health Service.
Three of their animals were given
normal diets and all the alcohol they
could drink. A 20 per cent mixture of
it was used in place Of drinking water.
After a year none of them gave any
far as their livers were concerned they
were as healthy as other rats kept on
normal diets and water.
Another group Of rats was given a
diet very low in proteins, such as are
supplied by lean meats, beans and eggs
in the human diet. 1t was especially
low in certain ulfur-containing amino
acids, which are necessary to growth.
Half these rats got water to drink and
half alcohol.
AS was expected, the animals grew
very poorly. The growth rate could be
stimulated abruptly by adding minute
amounts Of the necessary food sub
stances.
Both sets Of rates developed a high
proportion of liver cirrhosis. In the al
cohol drinkers, however, the condition
was considerably worse than in the wa
ter drinkers.
So far as known the deficiency diet
contained the vitamins necessary to
health. The Public Health Service doc
tors are far from assured, however, that
lack Of the sulfur- containing acids is the
sole cause of cirrhosis. 1t would be a
rare human diet which did not contain
enough Of them. They suspect some
other deficiency.
The function of alcohol, they point
out, is either to make the liver more
susceptible to the dietary deficiency in
the first place, or to aggravate the cir