Volume 1

The effects of alcohol and some other drugs during normal and fatigued conditions / [by William McDougall and May Smith].

  • William McDougall
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The effects of alcohol and some other drugs during normal and fatigued conditions / [by William McDougall and May Smith]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the errors in the dotting and in the memory tests, the attention being more easily directed to the task and to the meaning of the words learnt, and the process of recall being likewise facilitated. Applying the dotting and other tests to ascertain the influence of food taken with alcohol, the writers find little subjective or objective effects when alcohol, to an amount of 30c.¢.,is taken with a meal, whereas when it is taken from two to five hours after a meal the effects are unquestionable in the tests employed. Applying the dotting test to determine the effects of the degree of dilution of alcohol, they conclude that the weaker the solution the less marked are its effects. Both these results are in agreement with those of Dr. Mellanby (Report No. 31 of this series) and of Dr. Vernon (Report No. 34), but they call for further research. A more extended investigation is also necessary in the light of the authors’ interesting discovery that in the course of the pro- tracted fatigue effects following several nights’ loss of sleep, alcohol acts deleteriously during the stages. of increasing inefficiency, whereas it acts beneficially as the subject later begins to regain his previous efficiency. At the former stage it increases the errors, at the latter it reduces the errors made-in the tests. This suggests that an important cause of the conflicting results of past workers ee be due to the stage or degree of fatigue when alcohol was taken. MepDIcAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, September 1, 1920. 15 BuckINGHAM STREET, STRAND, Lonpon, W.C. 2.
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