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ments are described, the work with the right hand preceding in the first experiment, and that with the left hand preceding in the second experiment. In speaking further of these records,

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RI and LI will be used to designate those of the right and left hands in the first experiment; R2 and L2 the right and left hands in the second experiment. Where a greater number of

experiments are performed, the hands alternate in precedence from experiment to experiment. As it makes some difference which hand comes first, it is necessary to distinguish these experiments in the curves. The experiments in which the right hand precedes are sketched in a continuous line, those in which the left hand precedes are sketched in a broken line. The upper continuous and dotted lines naturally refer to the right hand, the lower to the left hand, except as otherwise specially indicated. According to this scheme of presentation, the course of the fatigue phenomena was found in 10 normal men to be as shown in Fig. 2.

That is, the curves follow the usual form, the decrease in the rapidity of tapping being more rapid in the earlier intervals, and then slower. The f, or ratio of the last five intervals to the first, approximates .90 in each case, being a little higher in the right than in the left. We see that the hands are somewhat closer together in the second experiment than in the first, that is, the right hand is relatively better in the first experiments and the left hand better in the second. Each hand thus tends normally to be relatively better when it precedes than when it follows in the experiment. This relationship is markedly disturbed in some pathological cases, sometimes so much so that whichever hand precedes, it is always better (or worse) than the following hand. In a typically retarded case of manic-depressive depression the curves shown in Fig. 3 were obtained.

These curves will serve to illustrate most of the peculiarities found in the records of the cases to be subsequently presented. Besides the lowered rate of tapping, the most striking abnormality is in the shape of the curve. This always drops very much less than the normal, and in the case of RI it even rises considerably. The interpretation of these delayed, or even negative fatigue phenomena, seems to be that assigned independently by Hoch, Specht, and Hutt, the progressive overcoming of the retardation. This we see most markedly in RI, where the curve is

The results with a commensurate group of women were similar so far as the present comparisons are concerned. Cf. Am. J. Ps., XX, 1909, pp. 353-363.

almost the reverse of the normal. The first interval should normally be the best; here it is the worst. Whenever the performance of the first interval is surpassed by the performance

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of a later interval, this will be known as reversal. Besides its conspicuous appearance in R1, reversal is seen less markedly in Li and in R2, where the second interval surpasses the first. The

f's of all these curves are naturally very much above the normal, being as follows:

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It is also very striking how much faster the second experiment is than the first. Such a difference is, so far as I know, never observed in normal cases. The practice effect in two such experiments is negligible. There is thus indicated very much less retardation in the second experiment than the first, and this is confirmed by the fact that the curves of the second experiment (dotted lines) are much closer to the normal shape than those of the first. The right hand shows much less of the abnormal "reversal," the left none at all. We see, however, that the dotted lines are very much farther apart than the continuous ones. This here indicates the following hand to be the more favored, and is the contrary to what we find normally. It is as though the work done with the first hand helped to overcome the resistances to be encountered by the second hand. To this rather characteristic favoring of the following hand has been applied the name of transference. The lowered absolute rate and the abnormal presence of reversal and transference are the essential phenomena of retardation as given in the present results.

The principal source of error in these observations is imposed by limitations in material that are scarcely avoidable in the groups investigated. Whenever we wish to make a comparison between a normal and a pathological group, it is desirable that the groups be as similar as possible, save in the characters to be investigated; otherwise it is possible that other characters than those investigated are responsible for the peculiarities noted. The greatest difficulty is that of age. This objection applies with about equal force in the analogous experiments of Hutt and of Specht, and in those of the writer. Thus Specht's traumatic cases form a fairly homogeneous group, and so do his normal cases, but their averages are many years apart, the normal individuals being for the most part in the twenties, the traumatic cases well along in middle life. So here, the normal group would average about the same as that of Specht, the depressions probably somewhat older, and much more variable. Of how much this factor has influenced

the results, we can judge only indirectly. The phenomena do not seem dependent upon age within the normal or depressed groups, seeming in the latter, at least, much more dependent upon changes in the condition than upon age, nor are they sufficiently evident in equally old cases of other psychoses. The manic group, fortunately, is sufficiently homogeneous with the normal to be capable of direct comparison.

We may now proceed to study the results of the method in a number of special cases. Of cases I, II, III, IV, V, and VIII mention has been made in a previous study, American Journal of Psychology, Vol. XX, pp. 38-59. In this previous study they are respectively cases XII, IV, VIII, X, XI, and III.

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2. CLINICAL HISTORIES AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS. CASE I. On account of existing uncertainties as to the relationship of certain depressive states to psychasthenic conditions and to hysteria the following case, which can now with considerable certainty be assigned to the manic-depressive group, is perhaps of special interest. The patient is a man of 61, with some heredity, described as having always been a very nervous man. six months' mental breakdown occurred at 38 and another at 40. Since then there have been no marked upsets until the present time, though he has been continually apprehensive and hypochondriacal. He would often get slightly depressed, but never sufficiently so to give up his work. Regarding these (Abortivanfälle?) he has said that it was "hard to concentrate his mind," "became very blue," "did not want to do anything," "all these attacks begin with a sense of ennui of work." The patient is a man of exceptional intellect and refinement. Physically, he has always been fairly healthy, though he mentions having had dizzy spells since childhood, and he has taken mercury and arsenic for an enlarged liver.

The beginning of the fixed ideas which color the present attack is referred subjectively to an episode about 18 months before admission when the patient, reading of a case of mercurial poisoning who had injured his family, began to fear a similar impulse. This fear became so strong that on one occasion he appealed to the police to restrain him, and during the latter part of this

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