THE DISCUSSION ON ANIMAL 

 NUTRITION AT DUNDEE 



Recorded by E. J. RUSSELL, D.Sc. 



The new agricultural section of the British Association has 

 adopted the useful rule of holding at each meeting a discussion 

 on some important agricultural problem of local as well as 

 general interest. Animal nutrition was selected as the subject 

 for Dundee and the section was fortunate in being able to 

 bring together physiologists, agricultural chemists and practical 

 feeders, so that each party could present its particular point of 

 view for the consideration of the others. Unfortunately the 

 discussion on the origin of life somewhat interfered with the 

 attendance. 



There can be no question as to the value of the discussion. 

 The problem has long been under investigation and each of 

 the three groups of workers had a considerable fund of 

 established fact to draw from. In general too, facts and data 

 familiar to one group were new to the others, so that in the 

 conversations that arose after the meeting it not infrequently 

 happened that a communication one group thought was lacking 

 in originality another group considered new and interest- 

 ing. The interest displayed in the discussion was real and 

 spontaneous, as indeed is almost always the case when a subject 

 has a human or practical side. But of chief importance was 

 the fact that men who are very differently occupied were 

 brought together and that a genuine attempt was made by all 

 to extend their several mental horizons. Agriculturists who 

 have remained faithful to the traditions handed down by an 

 older school of physiologists and have accumulated a large 

 body of data on the nutritive values of different foods were 

 able to assure the physiologists that none of the present methods 

 of evaluating foods gave results entirely in accordance with 

 the facts. 



The physiologists had irrefutable evidence to offer that no 

 single scheme can completely express the value of foodstuffs : 

 neither the protein minimum and energy value nor the starch 



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