SCIENTISTS AT WORK

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18382, 28 September 1929, Page 12

SCIENTISTS AT WORK

BLOOD TESTS AFTER RIDES. Among the subjects discussed at the summer conference of the United States Society of Automobile Engineers was the question of fatigue in automobile drivers and passengers. Driver and passenger fatigue is, perhaps, the paramount factor determining the practical limit of an unbroken motor-car ride. This fatigue and the elements that influence it are receiving much attention in the automobile engineering field. In considering the subject, Dr. F. A. Moss, of George Washington University, stated that progress in any line of investigation depends upon the ability to make exact measurements. Accordingly, the engineers and scientists now studying fatigue are seeking to develope a system for measuring changes in the physical condition of those who ride in automobiles. Tests are made to determine the actual consumption of oxygen by a subject as compared with the ambunt he should normally consume. Similarly, the carbon dioxide combining power of the blood, and white blood-cell counts, are observed because carbonic acid is a leading fatigue product while the white corpuscles are prominent bodily agents in eliminating any poison from the human system. Ten persons subjected to 250-mile test rides showed an average decrease in carbon dioxide combining power of 15 per cent, and a 25 per cent, increase in average white cell count. It is interesting to note that such tests indicate that “that tired feeling” experienced on long rides does not represent a very marked muscular fatigue, but rather the result of nerve fatigue. The most promising tests of nerve fatigue, to be investigated further, are tests of equilibrium, mental multiplication, speed of reaction, number of checking, and metabolism. All cf which points to the moral that the manufacture of automobiles nowadays is no longer as simple a matter as it used to be, or is generally supposed.