period he remained away from his family, though wanting very much to be with them. During this time he underwent some hypnotic and psychoanalytic treatment with negative results, and there are recorded three ineffectual attempts at suicide. With this subject the regular experiment was performed four times; on August 19 and 27, and December 23, 1907, and February 24, 1908.

The first two experiments were performed within about a month after the patient's admission. In the first experiment the subject

28

R

27

26

25

24.

23

FIG. 4.

seemed to co-operate willingly, although expressing many depressive ideas, especially toward the close of the experiment, when he talked more. This experiment was made in the afternoon, while the experiment of a week later was made in the morning, and at this time he was more depressed. The curves in these experiments are as shown in Fig. 4.

These records, especially those in the second experiment, are as marked illustrations of intraserial warming up and reversal as the writer has observed. The first interval is always the worst, while in only one of the records is the final interval surpassed by an earlier one. For the period used, therefore, the

fatigue-curves are almost the reverse of the normal. The "transference" phenomenon is, however, altogether absent; if anything, it is the preceding hand which is more favored.

During the time up to the next experiment the patient was clinically noted to improve somewhat, and he began to occupy

part:

himself with various intellectual pursuits that interested him. A physician's note of his condition of January 1, 1908, reads in "The patient eats and sleeps well and takes a moderate amount of exercise, though a great deal of his time is spent in his room where he reads and writes. He is always cheerful and agreeable. He was granted parole of the grounds on OctoSince then he has taken several trips to Cambridge with

ber

23.

66

his friends. These he invariably enjoys." A nurse's note made the day before the third experiment speaks of him as “doing well, seems more cheerful." We have apparently to do, therefore, with some progressive improvement in the patient's condition which may be compared with the difference in response to the test.

The curves in the third experiment, December 23, 1907, are as shown in Fig. 5.

The most striking feature of these curves is that the curves of the two hands are of a totally opposite type. The right hand, which precedes, shows a typically reversed curve, while the left hand, which follows, shows a curve much more approximating the normal, with reversal only in the second interval. It is to be noted also that while the left hand was inferior to the right in both previous experiments, it is now markedly superior to it. These phenomena indicate a considerable progressive change in the fatigability of the two hands throughout the experiment. The character of this change is best shown in the curve of the f itself, given below the rate curves for the two hands. It will be observed that regardless of the hand used, the ƒ shows a progressive decrease throughout the two records. That is, the further the resistances" of the depression are overcome by the work in hand, the more do the characteristics of the retarded work-curve disappear, and the more does the work-curve approach a normal character, with f's below 1.00. In the first two experiments the patient responded to these warming-up influences only within a single series, thus affording in both hands fairly typical reversed curves; but now, after a certain interval marked clinically by improvement in condition, the warming-up influence extends not only from series to series, but progressively throughout the records. An examination of the individual fatigue-curves shows how the earlier ones are typically reversed, and how this condition gradually changes over into the normal. The first curve of the experiment, made with the right hand, runs 25-27-27— 28-29-29, f 1.12, a typically reversed curve; the last curve of the experiment, made with the left hand, runs 30-28-28-27— 26-26, f .90, a typical normal curve. The apparent superiority of the left hand to the right is presumably a real "transference" phenomenon.

The points indicated in this experiment appear still more strikingly in the experiment made February 23, 1908. When the

Series! 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5

FIG. 6.

patient was sent for he was asleep, and had to be awakened to come to the laboratory. On arriving there, although, as usual,

entirely clear, he showed a depression and apprehensive manner not much out of keeping with his condition when first observed. This wore off during the experiment, at the conclusion of which he was quite smiling and talkative. The curves are as shown in Fig. 6.

We observe here a marked increase in absolute rate, which could hardly be associated with other than a changed condition of the patient. It is beyond the limits of both probable error and practice improvement. There is to a lesser degree the same difference between the preceding right and the following left hands as appeared in the third experiment. The right hand has reversal in the second interval, and shows very little fatigue; the left hand has no reversal, and even fatigues a little more than the normal. There is thus shown the same change in the conditions of fatigability, of which the curve of the f's again affords the best index. As in the previous case, this curve shows a progressive tendency to fall, though the fall is now confined to the first half of the experiment, while in the third experiment it persisted through the whole of it. Although this does not appear in the curves quoted, it should also be mentioned that the absolute rate of the five successive series now progressively increases in both hands, in the preceding right hand more than in the following left hand, whereas in the previous experiment this was evident only in the following left hand. The indications are that the patient is now much more susceptible to these warming-up influences, since they occur sooner in the experiment, and cover a wider range of improvement. The first right hand series is the slowest in all four experiments, with 133 taps, showing a curve with but slight reversal, which, however, persists throughout, 21-22-23-22-23-22, f 1.07. It is interesting to compare this with the second series, which in spite of its high f, 1.21, shows much less reversal. It runs 26—30—34—33—30— 30; i. e., a low initial rate, quickly warming up to the maximum, and then fatiguing normally. After this the f's drop below 1.00, though the individual curves do not assume a normal character until the last right hand series is reached, running 36-34-3232-31-31, f .89. The curves of the left hand are all perfectly normal, as the averages indicate, except that at the conclusion of the experiment there seems to have been a marked