THE BASIC SCIENCE

In an age so devoled to efficiency as the present one, experimentation on der the auspices of Doctors Hill and that most fundamental machine of all, the human body, is becoming of increasing importance. Harvard has not lacked representatives in this new field of research. Earlier this year C. P. Yaglou of the Medical School conducted exhaustive experiments into the effects of temperature on human effectiveness. Another research is now going on under the auspices of Dictors Hill and Henderson of the Medical School and School of Public Health for the purpose of discovering the reactions of the bodily processes to various forms of activity, and the results are hoped to add more material to the ever-growing mass of data on the subject.

The value of such researches is more than theoretical. Many industries have found out through costly processes of trial and error that human efficiency is greatly affected by external conditions such as temperature, ventilation, and hours of labor. There is also a limit to the adaptability of the body, and the determination of its most productive field is of obvious value. While it is doubtful that the human mechanism can ever be calibrated on any uniform scale, the general principles of determining the activity for which each is best suited can add much to both the productivity and well-being of workers in every field. Few investigations have as much potential power toward bettering mankind as those which will aid in determining these principles.