NUTRITION LABORATORY. 257 



Since the Laboratory is located in the vicinity of large hospitals, material 

 for the study of pathological metabolism, especially that of diabetic patients, 

 was secured through the efforts of Dr. Elliott P. Joslin and the facilities 

 of the New England Deaconess Hospital — a cooperation that has been pro- 

 ductive of a long series of studies on metabolism in diabetes. 



Reliance upon outside resources has been found advantageous not only in 

 studies of human metabolism, where the limitations of the building of the 

 Nutrition Laboratory and of its immediate environment have been recog- 

 nized as incapable of meeting fully the experimental conditions, but also 

 particularly in several series of observations with the lower animals. The 

 intimate relationship between the temperature of the living cell and its metab- 

 olism made a study of cold-blooded animals imperative in interpreting the 

 processes of metabolism, as with these animals it is possible by altering the 

 temperature of the environment to produce a corresponding change in the cell- 

 temperature. As large cold-blooded animals were necessary for the purpose, 

 and these can be found only in zoological parks, a cooperative arrangement 

 for the research was made with the New York Zoological Park. The cell- 

 temperature of birds is normally higher than that of humans, and it was 

 practicable to carry out still another study at the New York Zoological Park on 

 the metabolism of birds of unusual size and shape. 



The usefulness of the white rat for feeding experiments makes a study of 

 its metabolism of importance to workers with this animal. Furthermore, the 

 many problems of metabolism incidental to the animal life-cycle may be 

 studied more rapidly with the short life-cycle of rats than with that of humans. 

 But to maintain a good rat colony is of itself a scientific achievement of no 

 mean order; hence the admirably managed rat colony of Professor Henry C. 

 Sherman at Columbia University, New York City, has been employed in a 

 carefully planned investigation upon the metabolism of the white rat in cooper- 

 ation with Teachers College. 



The desirability of maintaining animals upon a constant ration, and possibly 

 upon a single food material, for a much longer period of time than can ordi- 

 narily be endured by humans, together with certain very important economic 

 factors in the nutrition of beef animals and particularly in the conversion of 

 carbohydrate to fat, led to an investigation with adult steers, which has been 

 made possible by cooperation with the New Hampshire Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station at Durham, New Hampshire. The unusual digestive processes 

 of ruminants warrant a special study of the fate of the various nutrients. 

 Such researches supplement in most vital manner our knowledge of the physi- 

 ology of humans. 



Without exception, these cooperative researches have proved both scien- 

 tifically and economically among the best of the undertakings of the Nutrition 

 Laboratory. This is probably due to the fact that the cooperative venture 

 in each case was initiated by the Nutrition Laboratory in direct response to 

 a need for information upon special phases of human or animal fife — phases 

 which could not well be studied by transporting either animals or humans to 

 the Laboratory building. In every instance the cooperation has resulted 

 in a study which has been beneficial, both scientifically and educationally, 

 to the various cooperating institutions. What might be considered as oppor- 

 tunism, therefore, is actually based upon experimental needs and the carrying 



