Forms of Behaviour of the Electrical Resistance of the Skin Related to Certain Psychiatric and Endocrine Conditions

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Abstract
This paper is devoted to investigations into the resistance of the skin to a direct current, measured daily in normal and mental subjects. These investigations arose out of special studies in the endocrinology of mental disease, and revealed some correlation between the diurnal resistance and endocrine functioning.The resistance of the body to the passage of a direct current is not a true resistance, being a complex phenomenon in which ohmic resistance and polarization are concerned. It has usually been referred to by other workers as the DC resistance of the skin, and has been expressed in ohms when measured with the type of apparatus used in this study. With apparatus of this sort, various workers have reported fluctuations. In this paper, although fluctuations are referred to as changes in diurnal resistance, they are in reality an effect, and not in the strict sense a resistance change. It is with the alterations in this effect in a variety of psychiatric and endocrine conditions that this paper is concerned.

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