22 



PHYSIOLOGY OF THE NEW-BORN INFANT. 



enough after birth (as in experiments 10 and 11, in which the infant 

 was placed in the respiration chamber immediately after tying the navel 

 cord) we see clearly that here also we have to deal with the consump- 

 tion of a store of carbohydrate, which causes the organism to burn 

 other materials in addition. 



In experiment 6 the quotient, even within an hour after birth, is 0.766. 

 Experiment 11 serves well for comparison. In this experiment an 

 infant of the same length, but weighing 200 grams more, shows a quo- 

 tient of 0.897 an hour after birth. If experiments 10 and 11 are com- 

 pared, we find in the case of prematurely-born children, also, the same 

 influence of condition of nutrition and of interval of time after birth 

 upon the quotient as with those born at full term. 



TABLE 3. 



food ; quietly sleeping or sucking during the whole experiment. 

 2 No food; bath; sleeping; respirations irregular, very few movements; artificial delivery; more 



than 1 month premature; died day following. 



3 No food ; lively in first half of experiment, sleeping in last half ; born less than 1 month prema- 

 turely. 



4 No food; no bath; born 3 weeks before time; crying about one- third of the time. 

 'Quieter; crying about one-fourth of the time. 



The infant in experiment 5, although very poorly nourished, has a 

 somewhat high quotient of 0.871, 2 hours after instrumental delivery. 

 The fact that this child when 2 hours old still had a large quantity of 

 carbohydrate to draw from is presumably due to the unusually low 

 metabolism. This experiment is important; it is a case of premature 

 interruption of pregnancy of more than a month before the end of the 

 full term. The prematurely-born infant, therefore, shows the same 

 respiratory quotient as the full-term child, indicating that it is con- 

 suming the remainder of its carbohydrate supply. It is an obvious 

 supposition that during the fetal life in mammals, with a physiological 

 nourishment by the mother, there are always sufficient carbohydrates at 

 hand, so that the respiratory exchange takes place normally with an exclu- 

 sive metabolism of carbohydrates. 



This supposition of mine is well supported by literature. The fact 

 that the fetal tissues contain large quantities of glycogen, which steadily 

 diminish during growth (always excepting the liver, in which more and 



