Nostalgie de la boue
Climate and health
Looking for trouble

Nostalgie de la boue

I was intrigued to come across a letter in the January issue of The Countryman referring to the habit of mud-larking that used to be practised by children in some of the harbours around the Solent. Apparently this filthy habit persisted until the 1939-45 war, when it was lost without trace.

Curiously enough, I can dimly remember, when I was a small child, that when my mother and I walked along the jetties of Portsmouth harbour to catch the ferry to Gosport or the Isle of Wight, we often saw small boys staggering about in the mud at low tide, waiting to be thrown pennies by passers by. My mother, I recollect, took a dim view of this begging practice and told me not to encourage the muddy little urchins. However, these urchins, so far as I can recollect, appeared always to be enjoying their mud-larking, although it was an activity for which I had no sympathy.

Since then, I have come across a strange expression, la nostalgie de la boue, in a play called 'Le marriage d'Olympe' by the French author Emile Augier, dated 1855. Part of the dialogue runs thus: “Put a duck on a lake among some swans, and you'll see he'll miss his pond and eventually return to it ... Longing to be back in the mud.”

Now, although this may seem to be a very minor idea, it could have great importance in the sphere of education and training. If Augier's assertion can be accepted, then, however much you try to better their lot, children brought up in an atmosphere of dirt and degradation will tend to revert to the old slime on the slightest excuse. This principle could be applicable to all walks of life, from nursery school onwards. It could provide an unanswerable argument against keeping people in squalor, against sending people into penal institutions where the mud will stick, or against allowing people to accept compromise situations where their professional standards will be depressed by the influence of sleaze around them from which their fellows are making profit. The implication of all this is that any pretence that it is more expensive to create a crystal-clear swan lake rather than a muddy duck-wallow is hypocrisy of the worst order.

Back to Top

Climate and health

For many years politicians have attempted to dismiss the idea that we are facing a climatic change as part of the global effect of human industrial activity. Now the notion seems to have taken root even among the former sceptics. The Department of Health has recently published a report on the possible effects of a changing climate on our health, drawn up by a panel of experts in meteorology, physiology, epidemiology and microbiology. Important factors are likely to be changes in temperature and increases in floods and gales. To mitigate the health hazards prompt action is believed to be essential.

By the year 2050 certain effects must be anticipated. Deaths attributable to winter cold are expected to fall substantially, but on the other hand deaths from heat effects in summer are likely to increase. The incidence of food poisoning is likely to show a substantial increase, perhaps by as much as 10,000 cases per year. There may be alterations in vector-borne diseases, with a mildly increased incidence, and water-borne diseases may follow the same tendency. Major disasters attributable to severe winter gales and coastal flooding are feared to become considerably more frequent. These are anticipated to constitute one of the most serious effects of warming of the hemisphere.

During future summers more symptoms which are the effect of increased ozone concentrations in the atmosphere are likely to appear, and cases of skin cancer and cataracts may increase substantially as a result of more exposure to sunlight. On the other hand, continued efforts to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases through industrial activity may bear fruit and ultimately exert a beneficial influence on human health and welfare. Ultimately, the most difficult aspect of achieving such benefit must be the necessity of persuading all countries to abide by a policy of lessened atmospheric pollution. This is a world-wide problem and cannot be resolved by unilateral activity on the part of any nation.

Back to Top

Looking for trouble

There seems to be no end to the polygraph problem that is exercising the authorities in the United States. One school of thought states that polygraphy offers a sure way of detecting liars and criminals, another maintains that the chance of error is too great to rely upon such tests.

According to a report published in Science for February 9, the expansion of the polygraph screening programme in nuclear weapons laboratories in the US has stirred up controversy yet again. A panel has been set up by the National Academy of Sciences to explore alternative techniques to detect cheats, including brain and thermal imaging, on the ground that lying is believed to involve brain processes rather than peripheral reflexes, upon which polygraphy depends. Some experts from various government departments claim on the one hand that polygraphy is a sound method of investigation while others maintain that it does more harm than good.

A screening study involving 120 subjects, recruited as volunteers by newspaper advertising, has commenced. Some subjects have been trained to pretend that they have been committing espionage. But critics have objected that, unless the tested subject stands to lose a job if the results go against him or her, the test is unlikely to be regarded seriously.

There are arguments over the relative value of testing working personnel and testing habitual criminals. In the last instance an unacceptably high number of false positives has been reported. And false accusations will inevitably damage staff morale. The training of those carrying out the tests and interpreting the results is a critical factor.

The testing method introduced as long ago as the 1920s measures heart rate, blood pressure, respiration and sweating reactions to questioning. Yet the essential factor determining guilt or innocence is emotion triggered by the fear of detection. Fear is particularly associated with the brain amygdala, which is powerfully stimulated by that emotion. Brain function is therefore the critical factor in the nervous reaction, and any method of determining it would effectively uncover a sensation of guilt.

Research is also being carried out into thermal imaging of facial blood flow during lying, using an infrared camera. Lasers are being designed to detect muscular, circulatory and other body changes. A voice stress analyser is being investigated, and the pattern of brain electromagnetic waves is being studied as a kind of fingerprinting technique. None of these methods suggested are, fortunately, invasive techniques.

Back to Top