Heat Elimination and Production. 189 



Some of the earlier forms of apparatus serve admirably for studying differ- 

 ences in the energy production of man, hut for absolute measurements of the 

 quantities involved the technique is, as a rule, open to grave criticism, and 

 the absence of suitable controls is keenly felt when examining much of the 

 older work. The more recently devised calorimeter of Dr. Letulle and Made- 

 moiselle Pompilian * has unfortunately not been described with sufficient ac- 

 curacy, nor have the test experiments made with it been published, so that we 

 have very little conception of the present possibilities of this apparatus. Un- 

 fortunately, the original description of the Pashutin respiration calorimeter 

 was in a dissertation in Russian, and hence inaccessible to most readers. With 

 this apparatus, however, the control experiments seem to have been planned 

 with unusual accuracy and forethought, and we have every reason to believe 

 that the measurements made with it greatly exceed in accuracy those made 

 by means of any previous apparatus. 



While, therefore, it is possible to discuss the earlier literature with regard 

 to both the vaporization of water and the carbon-dioxide production, and to a 

 certain extent with regard to the oxygen consumption, it is practically impos- 

 sible to compare the experiments here reported with any work made under 

 similar conditions in an apparatus other than that devised by Pashutin and 

 described in detail by Likhatscheff. In thus seemingly casting aside the work 

 of many of the French investigators with the air calorimeter and the investi- 

 gations with calorimeters designed to study the heat elimination from parts 

 of the body, such as the arm and leg, we do not presume for a moment to 

 belittle or to cast reflection upon the value of those experiments. The fullest 

 acknowledgment should therefore be made to these investigators for the funda- 

 mental work clone in thus blazing trails which were to be followed by subsequent 

 workers with more fortunate means and appliances than were at the disposal 

 of the pioneers. 



The results of experiments with the Pashutin calorimeter as presented in the 

 dissertation of Likhatscheff 2 show with 2 subjects at rest that one, A. D. P., 24 

 years old, and weighing 58 kilos, gave off in 3 experiments with food 80.5, 90.7, 

 82.2, and, when fasting, 74 calories per hour, respectively. With a second sub- 

 ject G. N". K., 24 years of age, weighing 65 kilos, the heat production per hour in 

 two 24-hour experiments was 104.6 and 101.8 calories, respectively. 



Likhatscheff and Avroroff, 3 when studying a woman patient, 17 years of age, 

 weighing 51 kilos, and suffering with intermittent malarial fever, found, as 

 the average of 22 hours of observation on a day when no fever was present, a 

 heat production of 67.3 calories. Although the experiment was made in 2-hour 

 periods, and during several of the periods the subject slept soundly, there are 



1 Letulle and Pompilian, Rev. de la Soc. Scientifique d'Hygiene Alimentaire, 1906, 

 3, p. 645. 



2 Likhatscheff, loc. cit. 



5 Likhatscheff and Avroroff, Reports of the Imperial Medical-Military Academy, 

 St. Petersburg, 1902, 5 (Russian). 



