OBSERVATIONS BY HASSELBALCH. 25 



carbon dioxide per kilogram and per hour for a new-born infant is not 

 essentially higher than the corresponding figure for a grown individual 

 in absolute repose. 



There is reason to investigate whether the different temperatures of 

 the children experimented upon have had an effect upon the difference 

 in the amount of the metabolism. As previously mentioned, a fairly 

 accurate value for the infant's temperature during the experiment is 

 the last figure in the column headed "Body-temperature" in the tables. 

 Recorded in this way, the infants' body-temperatures during the experi- 

 ments do not show large differences, and these are in all instances 

 plainly not parallel with the differences in the amount of the metabo- 

 lism; I emphasize experiment 3, table 1 (temp. 35.2, metabolism 481), 

 in comparison with experiment 8, table 1 (36.0, 270) ; experiment 5, 

 table 3 (35.8, 273) with experiment 4, table 3 (35.0, 464), etc. More- 

 over, it is sufficiently well known that strong and continuous crying can 

 raise an infant's temperature about 0.5. As crying is followed by a 

 rise in metabolism, a certain degree of parallelism between the infant's 

 temperature and the figure for the metabolism was expected. 



As regards the low temperatures after the birth-bath, they are for 

 full-term and strong infants obviously considerably lower than is 

 considered the rule. Vierordt 1 reports a temperature fall on account 

 of birth and birth-bath at an average of 1 C; a fall of 1.7 C. "comes 

 very rarely," but with delicate infants it may amount to even 4.7 C. 



In my experiments the normal children in experiments 3 and 2 in 

 table 1 show in one-half hour and 2 hours after birth a temperature 

 which is 4 C. or more below normal. When no bath after birth was 

 given prior to the experiment, the cooling-off after birth has been fol- 

 lowed by a fall in temperature of about 1 C. (experiments 17 and 13 in 

 table 2 and experiment 10 in table 3). I would not dispute the fact 

 that the tepid birth-bath is in all cases a very important means of 

 reflexly starting the respirations, but I consider it very possible that 

 the cooling off brought about by the bath can be carried too far, and if 

 special arrangements have not been made for effectively warming the 

 child after the bath, the cooling effect can be of too long duration. 



How is the respiratory metabolism of the new-born infant altered 

 under the influence of food, as well with respect to the quotient as to 

 the amount of the metabolism? When a hungry individual is put 

 on a nearly exclusive carbohydrate diet, 2 his respiratory quotient 

 reaches 1 about an hour after the first meal. In the course of an hour, 

 therefore, the absorption and combustion of the carbohydrates in the 

 different organs is in full operation. If we make an experiment similar 

 to this with fat, the quotient shows that the time for the combustion 

 of fat is considerably longer, i. e., about 3 hours after eating; something 

 similar is true of proteids. Carbohydrates, therefore, are for grown 

 individuals the food element most easily and most quickly consumed. 

 This agrees very well with the fact that Mosso found with dogs an 

 increase in temperature of about 1 C. an hour after taking 1 to 2 grams 



Vierordt, Physiol. d. Kindesalters, 1877, pp. 152-154. 



2 Speck, Physiologie des merischlichen Athmens, Leipsic, 1892, p. 35; Magnus-Levy, Archiv f. d. 

 ges. Physiol., 1894, 55, p. 1. 



