348 du bois: basal energy requirement of man 



fourteen hours or more after his last meal. There are many 

 synonyms for the ierai basal energy requirement, and it has 

 seemed advisable to group them in a list so as to straighten out 

 misunderstandings. 



Synonyms of Basal Energy Requirement 



Basal metabolism "Niichtern" metabolism 



Basal caloric requirement Post-absorptive metabolism 



Basal caloric production Total energy exchange 



Basal heat production Total gaseous exchange 



Minimal metabolism Total respiratory exchange 

 Total metabolism 



Of all of these synonyms the term basal metabolism is perhaps 

 the best and most scientific. Metabolism includes the absorp- 

 tion of foods, their oxidations and transformations into body 

 constituents, and also the later oxidations of these tissues. Such 

 are the energy exchanges of the body, taking place with the con- 

 sumption of oxygen and the formation of carbon dioxid, these 

 gases being carried to and from the blood by means of the respi- 

 ratory apparatus. 



On looking over this formidable list of synonyms one gets the 

 impression that scientists have spent much time in coining phrases 

 and have tried to make two words grow where one grew before. 

 Still we can have the recompense of knowing that when we have 

 understood the term basal metabolism we have mastered a con- 

 siderable portion of the dictionary. 



Lavoisier was the first to make experiments on the respiratory 

 metabolism and to grasp their significance. A long time afterwards 

 Pettenkofer and Voit constructed the famous respiration cham- 

 ber in Munich that gave Voit the data on which he founded our 

 modern science of nutrition. His pupil Rubner with his own 

 hands constructed a respiration chamber which was at the same 

 time a calorimeter. By means of this Rubner was able to prove 

 that foods are oxidized in the animal body in very much the same 

 way that they are oxidized in the bomb calorimeter or the Liebig 

 combustion furnace. The process is slower but just as complete, 

 except for the urea portion of the protein molecule. No heat 



