NUTRITION LABORATORY.! 



Francis G. Benedict, Director. 



With a pre-war budget the problem of maintaining the staff and the 

 scientific output of the Nutrition Laboratory at its normal level is becoming 

 more difficult. Attention was called in the last report to the importance of 

 cooperative investigations in enlarging the scientific activity of the Nutri- 

 tion Laboratory. Another factor which has been but little used since 1913 

 is again to assume a prominent role, that is, periodic visits by staff members 

 to the large research laboratories of America and Europe. Through the 

 printed page, either of monographs or of journal articles, the scientific public 

 is advised of the researches of the Nutrition Laboratory, yet in many instances 

 only personal conferences can give a clear idea of many details. 



Prior to 1914, special efforts were made to keep the Laboratory in close 

 contact with European as well as American laboratories and chnics occu- 

 pied with researches on the nutrition of man and animals. It was thus 

 possible to carry to other scientific laboratories the latest and many times 

 unpublished reports of the researches of this Laboratory and to interchange 

 ideas and hold conferences as to mooted points of research or plans for new 

 work, including at times cooperative efforts. In 1920 our former associate. Dr. 

 W. R. Miles, combined a tour of European laboratories with attendance 

 at the Physiological Congress in Paris, and in 1923 the Director felt justified 

 in a personal resumption of travel. Accordingly, in March 1923, an extended 

 tour was undertaken in order to carry to European laboratories information 

 as to the latest activities of the Nutrition Laboratory, to see the progress of 

 rehabihtation of scientific institutions, to study institutions not previously 

 visited, to give lectures, and to be present at the eleventh International 

 Physiological Congress at Edinburgh, which was attended by representatives 

 from many nations and presided over by Sir Edward Sharpey Shafer. Oppor- 

 tunity was had in this tour to discuss personally with many special- 

 ists of Europe problems of international importance, such as those of diet 

 and energy needs on the one hand, and on the other the innumerable abstract 

 problems in physiology of fundamental importance in the planning and con- 

 duct of research in metabolism. 



In foreign laboratories research has been prosecuted with very great 

 difficulty; but being relatively little disturbed in its scientific activity by the 

 war, the Nutrition Laboratory has in progress or completed a number of 

 major researches as yet unpubhshed. Lectures embodying the most recent 

 work of the Nutrition Laboratory were given in Paris, Berne, Heidelberg, 

 Halle, and Hamburg, while a communication describing certain new tech- 

 nique was given at the congress in Edinburgh. Numerous conferences were 

 held with physiologists and physicians, with discussions of the latest findings 

 in the Nutrition Laboratory work. 



Owing to the food crises due to the war, the use of metabolism measure- 

 ments in connection with the surgical handling of disease, and the wave of 

 pubHc interest in food problems, receptive audiences were found everywhere. 

 It was a real privilege to be able to carry to the Old World scientific results 

 that were of such interest as to lead one to hope that the great debt of the 

 Nutrition Laboratory to European research institutions was in a measure 



^ Situated in Boaton, Massachusetts. 



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