OCR Text |
Show Does the Knee Test Prove That Women Are vpl More Irritable Than Men? "fl A: LIGHT blow on the patellar ligament of a leg crossed over the knee is a familiar test to both practitioner and patient. Strangely, the scientific interpretation of the phenomenon has not yet been completed to the satisfaction o? critical investigators. 'Thus, it is still being debated whether the knee jerk is really a genuine reflex. "The observation of the knee kick by the usual clinical procedure furnishes at best only crude information," in-formation," says The Journal of the American Medical Association, "so that minor quantitative variations in the responses are always of problematic problem-atic significance. Physiologists have long recognized rec-ognized the fact that many factors, some of them of comparatively small magnitude, may affect the knee kick more or less markedly. Not only are there variations attributable to the strength of the stimulus used to elicit the muscular response, re-sponse, but reinforcements may creep in from various sources. "The results indicate that the irritability of the spina cord varies widely as the result of inc'- fo h dental conditions. Lombard believes that the ex- ffl tent of the knee jerk is a sensitive indicator of 111 l the relate state of irritability of the nervous U', - ' sys cm. The response, he has found, is incro;.or , Wf) I Shes themStilby;atCVCr incrcases " dim Than mem " m PePtiMy aon, in tie "On examining college students wi'Y-, ihe I iyY same age group under carefully co ntr 'c,,- " " t.ons, itwasfound that the average heVi P '. c l M in response to uniform stimuli V; rMI women; furthermore, the knee je,'k v-' 'V-', - "&r?!rCqUCn,!r in m thin i:, Co, e V ."V in relation to the diagnostic uses of th- r-ot k I One natural y hesitates to stress iron an- o S r TJ standpoint he experimental conclusion t "it in U$h . are less irritable than women." lNl Tl |