NUTRITION LABORATORY. 1 



Francis G. Benedict, Director. 



Perhaps no one phase of the activities of the Nutrition Laboratory has 

 attracted such general attention as have its extra-laboratory associations. 

 This is evident from the frequent comments which have been made upon the 

 cooperative researches whose results are recorded in the publications of the 

 Laboratory. Such cooperation, if harmonious and successful, has great 

 advantages, especially since it is difficult to include under one roof all of the 

 refinements and experimental juxtapositions that make for successful physio- 

 logical tests on a large variety of animal organisms. 



Our major problems always have been and probably will continue to be 

 found in measurements associated with human metabolism. The age at 

 which humans may be most satisfactorily and economically used for this 

 purpose is that of the college or medical student. Such students have been 

 readily secured for scientific observations at the Laboratory through the 

 courtesy and interest of professors in the neighboring educational institutions. 

 In addition to the nominal payments made to these subjects, they personally 

 derive educational benefits from such studies. In researches with subjects 

 either older or younger than these students, and particularly with groups of 

 individuals, cooperation with other institutions is essential. 



For studies of the metabolism of new-born infants, nursing babies, or, 

 indeed, school children, it is not easy to secure suitable individuals and bring 

 them to the Laboratory for observation, for much time must be spent upon 

 the education of the parents. That the Laboratory has been able to make 

 comprehensive studies upon young children is due to the cooperative relations 

 established through Dr. Fritz B. Talbot with the Boston Lying-in Hospital, 

 Massachusetts General Hospital, Directory for Wet-Nurses, and the New 

 England Home for Little Wanderers, all of Boston. To extend the range of 

 these investigations with the younger humans, it was necessary to seek the 

 aid of still another organization, i. e., the Massachusetts Council of Girl 

 Scouts of America, whose cooperation made it possible to study groups of 

 girls from 12 to 18 years of age. Volunteer groups of 18 to 25 young women 

 from Simmons College and the Boston Young Women's Christian Association 

 have also been frequently studied in one of the large respiration chambers. 



When the problem of the possible influence of extreme ration curtailment 

 upon the nation became an acute one during the earlier part of the late war, 

 and a fundamental research on undernutrition seemed desirable, it was neces- 

 sary to select a group of men whose veracity in such studies could under no 

 circumstances be questioned. For this research the Laboratory was particu- 

 larly fortunate in securing the hearty cooperation of a large group of students 

 from the International Young Men's Christian Association College at Spring- 

 field, Massachusetts. These men volunteered their services as subjects and 

 the college authorities offered gratuitously every facility, including the expert 

 counsel of many of its professorial staff. 



In an earlier study of a man fasting completely for 31 days, the research was 

 greatly extended in scope by the valued cooperating observations of several 

 members of the faculty of Harvard College and of the Harvard Medical School. 



1 Situated in Boston, Massachusetts. 

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