ARE YOU IN LOVE-AND WITH WHOM?

North Otago Times, 3 December 1910, Page 2 (Supplement)

ARE YOU IN LOVE-AND WITH WHOM?

*- —h HOW YOU MAY TELL.

Dr. Lightner Witmer Is making a series of'most .interesting tests with a new machine, It is an apparatus that can tell you, probably better than iy.our own heart, whether you are really in love or ,not.

I Take, for example; the case of a j young woman who' could not quite I make up her mind' whother to accept : Henry Brown - or Mortimer Jones, . Both, in her opinion, wevc most estiI mable young men and she liked them too. Moreover, she know that each of them, wanted to marry her, But, ' whether to give up Henry and accept Mortimer or to say "yes" to i Henry and tell Mortimer that she ' loved another better was a problem . that she did not seem able to an- \ swer, no matter how hard she tried, j Tho new love testing machine can ! easily solve all such 'problems as that. Tho yqung woman is invited by Dr. Witmer td ■ the psychological ! laboratory, where her middle finger j is inserted in a tube connected with the' machine. Then the professors ! watch the indicator closely as it i .rises and falls while the young woman is being questioned regarding her perplexing two-fold romance. The indicator registers on a piece of 'paper all of her varying emotions. At the moment of Mortimer's nama the line wavers and then drops. j When the- professors talk about Henry (the line leaps upward, That settles it. The young woman is told, probably much to her own surprise, that she loves Henry better than Mortiinier, and that she had better accept ' Henry and let Mortimer go. After debating the matter in her own mind the young woman will realise that tho machine knew her own' heart bot- . tor than she herself did.

If you want to.know mors abo'it this wonderful little lovc-tcsling machine you must refer to it as tno phthysmograph. The machine is not exactly a new invention. It has been used in psychological laboratories for two or three years to record the effects of emotions, to make demonstrations in the direction rf finding hidden objects, to prove the efficacy of "associated" names in criminal cases and for other psychological experiments. Not until recently did any one think oE employing the machine to answer the eternal question, "she loves me; she loves me not." Consequently, popular interest in the device is only recent, Now that some popular use (or it has been discovered it may become as much in demand as the phonograph, which at first was regarded only as an experimental device without any commercial value.

, Here is a description of the phthysmograph and the way it is operated :-

The chief feature of the machine is a small glass cylinder connected with a tube of rubber which fits the finger or tho hand like a glove. Into this mitten arrangement the subject —psychologists like to call their victims ''subjects''—inserts his or her finger or hand. The spaco between the glove and the cylinder is filled with water .and a gauge on top of the cylinder shows with unerring accuracy any contraction or expansion of the finger or hand so encased when stimulated to action by the psychological influence of the brain upon hearing the name of the loved one mentioned.

As the haud or. finger contracts, the water falls in the tube. At the same time a like effect is caused in a long rubber hose, filled with air and attached to the upright glass tube. Connected with the hose rs a piston-like apparatus, tipped with a rubber diaphragm, at the end of which is a lever with a pen attached which registers the contractions or expansions on a roll of blackened paper attached to a revolving drum. While a subject rests his or her hand or-finger in the water-encased glove a series of names are called out, Herbert, George, William, Henry pass through the young woman's mind without causing a curve in the recording line, But if she loves you, then when she hears your name, and the machine make's a rising mark,, you are safe in proposing. She loves you, and if you love her and can keep her love you I may live happy ever afterwards.— ! "Popular Science Sittings,"