Efficiency of Human Machine Is Sought by Doctors Hill and Henderson--To Determine Vocational Ability

An experiment of concern to the outside world is being conducted by Doctors I. J. Henderson and D. B. Hill of the Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health respectively. The research is concerned with the efficiency of the human machine under varying conditions.

"We are endeavoring to determine the simultaneous changes in physiological activities which are quantitatively large," explained Doctor Henderson in rather technical language to a CRIMSON reporter yesterday when questioned about the work. "We are taking quantitatively large activities because they vary together in a significant way."

The men are trying to represent the pattern or the temperament of response to conditions of different people. They believe that if these experiments are conducted long enough by people and on a wide enough scale if will be possible to find out facts concerning the human body which will have an effect athletically, industrially, and economically. It will be possible to find out what is wrong with people, what jobs they are fit for why they are not successful in other jobs, and to what diseases they are subject.

The methods used in finding out these facts vary with different people. The changes in the blood are studied under different activities and conditions, the oxygen consumed, the carbonic acid excreted, the changes in breathing, the amount and rate of blood circulating, the amount of blood put out by one beat of the heart, and other similar actions.

This experiment is very similar to one conducted in the Medical School in February by C. P. Yaglon. He investigated the efficiency of the human body under varying conditions of temperature. It was described that man is at his highest physical efficiency when working in a temperature of 70 degrees.