OCR Text |
Show Keeping Up Uaene Science Service. WNU Service. Ex-Mental Patient Warns Dissipation Leads to Collapse Shun Bad Temper, Drink and Love-Nests, He Says By MARJOEIE VAN DE WATER Science Service Staff Writer. New York. Bad temper, greed, and overweening ambition am-bition are blamed for the bringing on of mental disease, dis-ease, by Henry Collins Brown, historian-founder of the Museum of the City of New York, himself a patient for about three years in a state hospital for mental patients pa-tients and now recovered. Mr. Brown's own breakdown occurred oc-curred when, at the age of sixty-five, sixty-five, he was removed from the museum mu-seum in which were tied up all his hopes and dreams and he was replaced re-placed by a younger man. He did not "lose his mind," did not become be-come confused In his thoughts, but he entered a long period of depression depres-sion during which he ceaselessly paced the floor without rest or even a sense of fatigue. During that period pe-riod he made many illuminating observations ob-servations of those about him. Love Nests, Liquor Blamed. "Early in my sojourn I became profoundly impressed with the large number of cases that were what I classed as preventable," Mr. Brown said in summing up these impressions impres-sions in "A Mind Mislaid," published pub-lished by Dutton. "That is to say, they were the result of causes that could be avoided. They were the direct and natural consequences of the risks deliberately chosen by the patients themselves. And, of course, when things went wrong, as they invariably did, one or two persons per-sons smashed up as a consequence. "Philandering and excessive drinking furnished the largest contingent con-tingent of these casualties," Mr. Brown declared. "Love nests rear nothing but 'cuckoos.' That is a piece of 'bughouse' 'bug-house' philosophy worth remembering." remember-ing." Particularly, Mr. Brown warns against the dangers, mental as well as physical, of intense anger, which he hints had to do with his own troubles. Any feeling so powerful as to take blood from one part of the body and send it scurrying to another puts upon the heart a violent vio-lent strain, he points out. Persons who let themselves go whenever the impulse moves them are doing themselves a serious injury. Self-Control Not Easy. "We have all known men who allow al-low themselves to get in a towering rage over some very trivial matter," mat-ter," said Mr. Brown. "Perhaps if that man knew that he might snap one of the numerous delicate tissues of the brain, causing him to spend his old age in an insane asylum, he might very readily learn to control con-trol himself. "Now self-control is not an easy matter. Today I can control myself, but who wants to go through what I did to learn a lesson that can be acquired without all that hideous torment and suffering? "I often think a few weeks spent in an insane asylum would be the greatest panacea for bad temper that could be devised." Brain Keeps Growing but "Brains" Don't, Says Dr. Hrdlicka Washington. The brain inside your head continues to grow until the age of fifty or sixty years. Evidence for this invisible growth, detected by measurements of great numbers of human heads, is reported re-ported here by Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, noted anthropologist of the United States National museum. That the human head continues to grow, until old age sets in, is demonstrated by Dr. Hrdlicka's own measurements of American heads. Foreign scientific studies reveal the same growth phenomenon in other peoples. Dr. Hrdlicka has concluded the most logical cause for this head growth is that the brain itself is growing, since there is no evidence that the scalp or bones of the vault thicken with age. The chance that frontal sinuses would account for the enlargement is also discounted, since Dr. Hrdlicka explains that they attain their full growth when the adult is still fairly young. Continued slight growth of the brain does not serve to improve intelligence in-telligence in dults, so far as Is known. That is, the new idea of a growing adult brain does not, so far, alter psychological views, that only in exceptional Individuals does absolute ab-solute intelligence increase after about twenty years. Enforce Simple Rules of Road to -Cut Traffic Toll Drivers in Mishaps Must Appear for Hearings By ROBERT D. POTTER Science Service Writer. Washington. AstheLeague of Nations has long since found out, you can set up all sorts of rules and regulations but their success depends on the kind of enforcement which goes along with them. Something of the same kind of situation exists in regard to the intricate and varied traffic laws and regulations which are invisibly but firmly firm-ly wound around every driver of a motor vehicle on the roads of America today. The current and encouraging trend among thinking traffic experts today is toward simplification rather than an augmentation of the traffic rules. Four simple, basic "rules of the road" are suggested by Dr. H. C. Dickinson, chief of the heat and power division of the national bureau of standards in Washington and chairman of the Important highway high-way research board of the National Research council. Condensed in summary these rules are: 1. Stick to your own lane of traffic with but two thoughts in mind. Watch the car ahead and warn the car behind when you do anything which changes your movement in your own traffic lane. Walt for Other's Signal. 2. Realize that you have no right to cross or turn into another traffic lane. You do so at your own risk and must not do so without proper signal. 3. Change from your own traffic lane only after having given a specific spe-cific signal or by a clear indication by the motion of your car. BUT, do not complete the movement until you have received a signal from the other driver that he will yield his right of way. 4. At no time exceed such speeds that your car cannot be stopped in its own traffic lane before interfering inter-fering with other traffic in this lane, or with traffic which may reasonably reason-ably be expected to enter your lane even without a specific right to do so. Dr. Dickinson, however, Is not merely content to set up such simple sim-ple basic rules. He knows that on the proper enforcement rests their effectiveness. Get Both Parties in Court. Any traffic accident, says Dr. Dickinson, means that one of the four basic rules has been violated. It is probable that both parties have been guilty. In order to get both parties to an accident into court, it should be obligatory, ob-ligatory, contends Dr. Dickinson, that both parties report any collision colli-sion in which there is personal injury in-jury or damage to cars other than to fenders or bumpers. Failure of either party in the accident to report it, should be considered as "leaving the scene of the accident." Heating Quality of Coal Determined by Refraction Index New York. A new experimental experi-mental method by which scientists sci-entists can look at a piece of coal and tell how much heat it will generate was announced an-nounced at the meeting of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers En-gineers here. But don't rush down to your own coal pile and hope to tell whether the present delivery is better than the last one. The new method is relatively simple; but not that simple. Two midwestern geologists, L. C. McCabe of the Illinois geological survey, and Prof. T. T. Quirke of the University of Illinois, described the secrets of coal analysis in their technical paper, "Angle of Polarization Polariza-tion as an Index of Coal Rank." Shown by Refraction. Tiny cubes of coal are polished and brightly illuminated with a small lamp. The light reflected from the polished surface becomes polarized polar-ized and is studied with Nicol prisms to determine the angle of polarization. polariza-tion. By a fundamental rule of optics op-tics known as Brewster's law, the angle of polarization of the reflected light can be related to what scientists scien-tists call the index of refraction. This last Is the degree of bending which a material will cause as light passes through It Final and significant step in the research was the discovery that the amount of heat In B. T. U. (British Thermal Units) which a unit amount of coal can produce is related re-lated by a simple straight-line relationship re-lationship with its index of refraction refrac-tion as measured in the apparatus. Using the wide range of different kinds of coal found in Illinois from woody lignite to soft bituminous and so on to harder bituminous, it was found that as the heating qualities of the coals increased, so, too, did |