Last week young Physiologist John West Thompson left his bustling Fatigue Laboratory at Harvard, bundled up his new haematometharmozograph, and went to Kansas City. Reason: he wanted to convince the Association of Military and Civilian Flight Surgeons that his ingenious device could efficiently measure fear reactions of pilots.
Haematometharmozograph is a ten-dollar name for a simple two-hundred dollar contrivance made from an electric light bulb, a photoelectric cell and an oscillograph. On the principle that fear constricts small blood vessels in the fingers, prevents blood from freely circulating through the hands, Dr. Thompson rigged up an apparatus which would indirectly show whether...