NUTRITION LABORATORY. 263 



ameter, is described and illustrated. This, as the subject who is being tested 

 tries to stand motionless, automatically accumulates all the anterior-posterior 

 and lateral components of the swaying movements directly in terms of milli- 

 meters and provides a convenient method of making the measurement. The 

 quantitative influence of certain anatomical and physiological factors is shown 

 by original data and directions for making such measurements outlined. 

 Results for a long series of measurements are presented and it is shown that 

 station is but slightly improved by training. 



(6) Calories for children. Francis G. Benedict. New York Med. Jour., vol. 115, p. 126 

 (1922). 



In considering the food needed by children for full activity with best growth, 

 one must know first what is the smallest amount of food necessary to maintain 

 life without providing for activity or growth. Having once determined the 

 minimum food needs, in other words the minimum heat-output of children, 

 one may then study the influence of different factors, such as activity and food 

 ingestion. The Nutrition Laboratory has studied the minimum or basal 

 heat-production of a large number of children from birth to 12 years of age, 

 employing specially constructed respiration chambers for measuring the 

 carbon-dioxide production and oxygen consumption, and thereby indirectly 

 the heat-production. These observations with individual children were sub- 

 sequently supplemented by observations with groups of children studied 

 at one time in a much larger respiration chamber. With the cooperation of 

 the Girl Scouts of America, measurements were made upon groups consisting 

 of 12 girls each, ranging in age from 12 to 17 years. Thus, data were gradually 

 accumulated with regard to the metabolism of both boys and girls from birth 

 to 12 years of age and the metabolism of girls from 12 to 17 years of age, and 

 thus it has been possible not only to compare these data with regard to dif- 

 ferences in the age, weight, and sex of the children, but also to compare them 

 with data secured with adults. One of the most important facts established 

 by this study is the specifically high heat-production during youth. This in 

 part explains the well-known enormous demands for food by active, growing 

 children. The active, growing boy or girl needs practically all the energy 

 intake that can possibly be eaten: (1) for maintenance, and there is a speci- 

 fically high demand for maintenance; (2) for the normally large physical 

 activity; and (3) for proper growth. Indeed, it may be safely asserted that if 

 digestive disturbances are avoided, it is impossible to overfeed the growing 

 child with good, simple, nourishing food. This paper was given before the 

 Medical Department of the University of Buffalo, New York, June 2, 1921, 

 as the first Harrington Lecture. 



(7) Metabolism during starvation and undernutrition. Francis G. Benedict. New York 

 Med. Jour., vol. 115, p. 249 (1922). 



A study of the influence upon metabolism of complete withdrawal of food 

 was initiated in the chemical laboratory of Wesleyan University, where a large 

 number of short fasting experiments, ranging from 2 to 7 days, were made 

 upon different individuals. Several years later the Nutrition Laboratory made 

 a very extensive study of the metabolism of a man during a 31-day fast. With 

 the onset of the Great War attention was centered upon the question of 

 food conservation, and as a result the Nutrition Laboratory decided to study 

 the problem as to whether it is possible to reduce the food intake in the body so 

 as to permit an appreciable, permanent curtailment in food intake. With the 

 cooperation of the International Y. M. C. A. College at Springfield, Massa- 

 chusetts, a group of 12 students volunteered as subjects for such a test, and 

 for four months were kept on a diet with an energy content a little more than 



