“BLOOD--CURDLING"

Evening Star, Issue 18980, 30 June 1925, Page 5

“ BLOOD--CURDLING"

CONCENTRATED IN’ EXCITEMENT AND FEAR. “ Blood-curdling ” event:; are such in very truth, according to recent experiments, for excitement and fear both thicken the lii o tin id by condensing it . Cold has the sumo effect, wo arc told by Science Service’s ‘ Daily Science News Bulletin ’ (Washington). We read:—“When yon go into a warm room, salt and uater suddenly pour into your blood-stream from the reserve in your tissues, so that when you start to perspire the perspiration will not rob the blood fluid unduly of these necessary constituents. This is one of the many interesting observations which have been made by the use of a rapid technic for estimating the density of the blood which was described before the American Physiological Society by H. G, Barbour, W. F. Hamilton, M. H. Dawson, and I. Neuwirth, of the University of Louisville. Utilising the principle underlying the common observation that a. stone falls through the air faster than a feather, these workers estimated tho concentration of the blood by allowing a drop to fall through a solution slightly less dense than itself, and timing tho rate of fall with a siop-waieh. The speed can be correlated directly with tho specific gravity or density of tho blood, providing tho drops are all of uniform size. Tho examination requires only a few seconds, and permits rapid changes in the blood to ho followed. Using this method, wo find that blood in our bodies becomes concentrated in a cold bath and diluted in a warm room, and that a ]() per cent, change may occur in tho water-content of the blood within five minutes, tho investigators reported. The blood also becomes concentrated in excitement and fear.”-