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MEMOIRS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



Table 17. — Comparison of gains and lasses of body protein and fat, <nn! transformation of energy in experiments icith 



and without alcohol. 



[Quantities per day.] 



The bold-face figures in the last line of each group in the columns for protein and fat give 

 the gain or loss of material and energy in the alcohol experiments as compared with those without 

 alcohol. The plus sign indicates greater gain and the minus sign greater loss with the alcohol 

 than without it. 



So far as the available (digestible) nutrients of the food are concerned, the quantities of 

 protein are about the same and the quantities of energy slightly larger with alcohol than without 

 it, but with the body material, on the other hand, there was generally a little larger loss of 

 protein and a little larger gain or smaller loss of fat in the experiments with alcohol. 



The figures in the last column represent the energy of material actually oxidized; that is, the 

 total energy metabolized in the two classes of experiments. The full-face figures show by the '+ 

 sign the excess of energy metabolized with the alcohol diet. The values are found by deducting 

 the algebraic sum of the calories of energy gained or lost in protein and fat from the total 

 available energy of the food as indicated by the letters and formula? in the column headings. 

 Thus in the first group we have an excess of + 8 — (— 20 + 12) = 16 calories of total energy 

 metabolized in the alcohol as compared with the nonalcohol experiments. The same result is 

 found by comparing the total quantities of energy metabolized, namely. 2,925 without and 2,941 

 with alcohol. The variations in the amounts of body material gained or lost and in the amounts 

 of energy metabolized in the two classes of experiments may be due to either of three causes: 



1. Such experimental errors as irregularities in the daily absorption of the food from the 

 alimentary canal, or variations in the amounts of carbohydrates in the body which are here 

 assumed to be constant from morning to morning, or from experiment to experiment, or small 

 errors in the estimates of gains or losses of protein and fat from the gains or losses of nitrogen 



