| Show OHO a n n v-- & fey G) Kr ! lml il Wives have long suspected that their husbands after one 6 fthose bad days at the office have acted ' It has been a toughidof Jiou are just patn beat out At dinner Jjou ay "Scai again?" and your tcife reminds you that steak teas tfhal you specifically asked for that very ' morning i (Ijlfafe kilSf ' V - - m - x r exactly as a drunk who has reached the same stage proclaims how fine he feels and the solicitude over him is quite misplaced or even of- i slightly loony— and here's the scientific explanation for it By Dr Frank Thdne !' u i ONT let yourself get too tired For I when you do you become just a V little insane j' Such is the warning of a competent scientist Dr b M Johnson research professor of psychology at American j University in Washington D C His dictum is no mere authoritarian pronouncement i he can back it up with the results J of many carefully performed experiments conducted while he was stationed at the Melloii Institute in Pittsburgh and by equally careful observations elsewhere But you do not need to be a professor in a laboratory to get some? sort of observations that will check up this doctrine Which of ius does not remember "acting crazy" when n f i JJ ' ficious US' Uvr yx alcoholism To this should be added a third cause of the same type of disorder: oxygen shortage such as must be endured by aviators flying too high without oxygen equipment Tests be performed on aviators as a result of war-tim- e problems the: kind out of same brought thing: impairment of judgment bad muscular quarrelsomeness misinterpretation of sights and sounds ail arose when the man under test was put on short rations of oxygen as they do in drunkenness or extreme fatigue One physiological picture can account for all these similarities ion over-fatigue- d? O " ) t If you are an average citizen you will questionably VVHEN un- we exert ourselves either physically or mentally the cells of our body split apart molecules of food substance — usually sugar— and gain energy from it The final product of this living combustion is the same as have gone through evenings like this: You get home from the job It has been a tough day you are just plain beat out At dinner you say "Steak again?" and your wife reminds you that steak was what you specifically asked for that very fmora'ng Noticing the rather obvious tone of patient restraint in her voice you drop the subject She starts to tell ypu of the hard day she has had: the maid has" the 'flu so she had to do the housework herself and besides that get things ready for bridge: with the Binxes tonight You had forgotten ?all about the date with the Binxes You had figured on going straight You start to $ay something to that efto bed fect your wife raises an eyebrow So you go upstairs and fumble Into a clean shirt tuning Jim Binx and all his ancestors under your ! breath i that of fire carbon dioxide But the first products are half-wa- y things alcohols and similar ! 4 f Mr and Mrs Binx arrive You You notice that play bridge your fingers are all thumbs you mess up a couple of deals with your clumsiness You forget what's trump The Binxes who aren't tired laugh at you but your wife is annoyed i That makes you sore again You growl at your rotten luck though really your hands You overbid and get set average well enough You underbid and get a postmortem after the hand In general you have a pretty rotten time After the Binxes are safely oft the front steps your wife opens up with "Whatever possessed you to trump Dora's ace in that last hand? Are you plumb crazy?" i And so far into the night— The point is though that your wife was I j j os' g UIIOllll!ni!!llll!!j You curse the other driver even though you knov he cannot hear you Shifting shadows transform themselves into stray horses late pedes- trians unlighted cars— that care not there at all ' WELL i It is a cardinal point in Dr Johnson's psychological doctrine that there is a basic physiological similarity between the temporary insanity of latigue and the temporary insanity of ) y I Vl ' 1 v y ¥ ' You are crazy So is she You both right have got yourselves too tired and you are doing temporarily what insane patients do all the time and to a more marked degree Your loss of grouchiness your temper your general clumsiness your foretfutness and errors of judgment all are symptoms of a passing though none the less real mental aberration You need treatment and you get it: seven or eight hours of sound sleep In the morning you are sane again In this imaginary domestic y the effects of fatigue acquired at one set of tasks are transferred to bad performance in another situation But in another set of circumstances where Dr Johnson has repeatedly made observations both on himself and others the effects of fatigue are seen in the original task itself — and possible consequences may be serious too You glance up eyes on the road all the time you know he cannot hear you Shifting shadows transform themselves into stray horses late pe-to enjoy the landscape or sidewise to admire destrians You talk freely unlighted cars— that are not there your companion's profile crack jokes maybe sing a little at all You glance at the instrument board checkAnd when your companion first suggests oil then insists that you must stop and jget some ing up on gas battery speed mileage You keep an eye on the passing road signs and sleep you want to keep on driving driving know how far it is to the next town In gendriving hearing nothing but the drone of the eral you are a normal untired human being motor seeing nothing but the road the road the road living in a dozen directions at once As the day wears on you shed some of your You re coo-co- o again You exuberance talk stop joking and early less You don't feel Klce singing and the ER weariness of this kind can do queer T You tricks sometimes Dr Johnson states that landscape no longer appeals to you little watch approaching cars a more anxiously he himself under the stress of too many hours late have of driving has in the extremity of his fatigue becQme night you By practically a driving monomaniac All that matters is the "heard voices" exactly as some types of mental road the road the road You stop talking alpatients hear them together Your erstwhile interesting companion "Fortunately" he adds "such conditions is a nuisance and a bore You forget about lasted but a few seconds at a time and never JOHNSON pictures the progress of the instrument board You occurred in heavy traffic" watching disregard weariness as it overtakes and makes a near-lunat-ic the road signs lose frack of where you are Another condition arises under heavy fatigue: of an average automobile driver who You are no longer alert to traffic emergenyou come to a point where you "feel good" undertakes to drive all day and nearly all night cies and find yourself making sudden swerves even though you may have a dull sort of realizaIn the morning you start out fresh and tion that you are not exactly normal You will or stepping hard on the brakes to avoid a crash You do not rivet your bright as the day itself the other driver even though Then you curse protest to your friends that "I'm all right"—- iCopyrlffht 1935 by EveryWeek Masrazim and Science Service) : tragi-comed- Til TR illUIHIIUIIIIllOlillllllllllllllli ( compounds If enough oxygen keeps coming in via the blood corpuscles to burn up these alcohols and their chemical relatives all is well: they yield more energy and do good rather than harm But if the alcohols are formed too rapidly or if the blood does not bring oxygen rapidly enough they pile up in the cells as poisons—-a- nd we have our turn as ' temporary minor lunatics That is a "very much simplified (possibly picture of what goes on in our bodies Dr Johnson emphasizes his belief that to a considerable degree it goes on all over our bodies even though we may not be exerting every muscle or every nerve Disregard of the "all-ove- r" participation in exertions that make us tired has led some psychologists into error he holds -- Some of them have gone so far as to declare that if one arm for example is overexerted the "poisons" its muscles produce are carried to all other parts of the body and there impair other cells and tissues Similarly severe mental exertion can cause the "fatigue-poisons- "! generated in the brain and nervous system tobe carried to remote Brain-fa- g muscles can make our toes ache they say All this declares Professor Johnson is nonWhen we exert one set of muscles we sense can not help moving practically all other muscles in our body at least to some extent over-simplifi- ed) y iillll!lllilll!llllt!lIIllll!lllllll!l!ll!lllllllll!ll!IIll!III!ill!!D(!liiD!iL n |
