The effect of humidity on nervousness and on general efficiency / by Lorle Ida Stecher.

  • Stecher, Lorle I. (Lorle Ida), 1891-
Date:
1916
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The effect of humidity on nervousness and on general efficiency / by Lorle Ida Stecher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CHAPTER II GENERAL Merruop or THE Humipiry ExPpERIMENT THE experiment was carried’ on in the laboratory of the New York State Commission on Ventilation. A technical description of the equipment of the plant has been given elsewhere.! - It will be sufficient for our purposes to say that there was an experimental chamber 10 feet by 14 feet by 10 feet high, and a control room elab- orately fitted with heating and cooling devices and with apparatus for humidifying and for drying the air, so that any air condition met in practice could be reproduced, and the different factors of the air environment studied independently. The experiment lasted from October, 1915, to the end of January, 1916. We had planned to have eight squads of four subjects each, but for various reasons only twenty-nine subjects were actually tested. Because of the unusually high outdoor humidity during the month of October, which made it impossible for the engineers to produce the requisite dryness of the air in the experimental chamber, that month’s experiment was regarded as a preliminary study, and the results of the psychological tests for that time are not herein included. During the month of November a moderate degree of dryness was studied, and during December and January the more severe conditions were used.” The squads were designated A to H in chronological order. We observed four subjects during a period of two weeks, the first week under 50 per cent. relative humidity, the second under 20 per cent. The subjects were in the experimental room five days a week from nine until five o’clock, with the exception of three ten-minute recess periods. After a fortnight another squad began under the 20 per cent. condition and spent its second week under the 50 per cent. humidity. This reversal of conditions was designed to equalize the practice effect. The work done by Squad A in its first (wet) week, plus the work done by Squad B in its second (wet) week was compared with the work done by Squad A in its second (dry) week, plus the work done by Squad B in its first (dry) week. The averages derived from these two totals gave a measure of the difference in the 1 Kimball, D. D., and Palmer, G. T., “Experimental Laboratory of the New York State Commission on Ventilation and Description of the First Year’s Work,” Trans. Amer. Soc. Heat. & Vent. Eng., 1915, 21, 135. 2 For chronology and actual physical conditions see Appendix.