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In prior studies Fisher and Cleveland developed an experimental test by noting that the boundary of the body image was projected into a subject's description of the periphery of an ink blot. They found that subjects whose Rorschach responses emphasized the protective, decorative, or limiting function of the blot margin had a high 'barrier' score and used skin and muscle as organs of physiological discharge (neurodermatitic and arthritic patients). In contrast were those with a high 'penetrability' score, a less well-defined body image boundary, whose physiological discharge was visceral (ulcer and ulcerative colitis patients). Earlier studies showed a minimal histamine response in chronic schizophrenics with their impaired sense of body image.
With this in mind the present authors, using fifty-five male and forty-five female college students as 'normals', predicted that the higher the 'barrier' score the greater the intradermal reaction to histamine. This was confirmed statistically in the female group but not in the male subjects. Cassell and Fisher suggest that the present dilution of the drug may not affect male subjects or that its difference may be due to communicative factors. They then add '… it