Edwin Balmer, William Briggs MacHarg · 1910 · Novel
Setting: 1909
In 1909 William MacHarg and Edwin Balmer published the first story about Luther Trant, the first fictional sleuth to use psychoanalysis in his detection, and one of the first to feature a lie-detector test. What Trant (and the authors) mean by “psychology” is one’s physical reaction in telling the truth or a lie, and upon the instruments that can measure that response. Eventually, a great number of machines is either used or referred to in the stories: chronoscope, galvonometer, automatograph, electric psychometer (or “the soul machine”), sphygmograph, plethysmograph, kymograph, pneumograph. Nowadays, we would find psychological interpretation to be less absolute, and the lie-detectors and other machines to be less dependable, than MacHarg and Balmer believed.
Source: OpenLibrary
Tags: Chicago (Ill.) -- FictionDetective and mystery storiesLuther Trant (Fictitious character) -- FictionPsychological fictionScience fictionShort stories, Americanneeds-reviewno-clear-speculative-idea
openlibrary_id: OL96107W
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