VITALITY TESTS

Evening Star, Issue 18144, 7 December 1922, Page 6

VITALITY TESTS

I STRENGTH OF BKEATHLVG MUSCLES. Supporting a. column of mercury by the breath h a test of vital efficiency to be applied to workers in representative factories. Tin's method of ascertaining physical fitness was used in the case of airmen during the war, and its employment in civil occupations is one of the interesting branches of research work being done by the Ministry of Health. Wing-commander Martin Flack, Koyal Air Forco Medical Service, developed the test for flying men, who wro asked to sustain with the breath as long as possible 40mm of mercury in a tube (states a writer in the 'Daily Chronicle '). The acceleration of the pulse, over which tho human being; has no control, was a factor in determining whether a man was fit for flying. "An investigation is being mode of the physical efficiency of different social types," explained in official of tha Ministry of Health. "Dr Lucy Cripps has examined 272 girls at London training and university colleges, and 132 at the South-Western Physical Training College, where young women learn to become instructresses in physical training at higher grade schools. The results have- been compared with those obtained from young men by Wing-commander Flack. Arrangements have boon completed for Dr Cripps to oarry out similar experiments, with the female clerical staff of the Board of Inland Revenue, -and then to take on several representative factories." Some of the tests that have already been made are illuminating. Well-developed girls, who played hockey and other vigorous games, not only could not approach tha standard of the H.A F. oandidatce, but actually could not sustain more than fialf the column of mercury—namely, 20mm. A normal person can support the 40mm for a few seconds, but the "difference in breathing capacity between men and women was raosl marked. Further experiments with typists and other sedentary girl workers as subjects ara expected io,throw additional ligrhfc upon tha relative vital capacity of the two -sexes.