REPORT OF the; PRESIDENT, IQIO. 27 



Altho this laboratory has been occupied less than two years and is not yet 



fully equipt, it has alredy produced contributions of fundamental importance 



to our knowledge of the chemistry, physics, physiology, 



The Nutrition ^^^^ pathology of nutrition. Its experience, like that of 



all the laboratories of the Institution, affords an impressiv 



demonstration of the productivity attainable by concentrated effort along 



determinate lines of research. Construction and instalation of additional 



equipment, the prosecution of investigations, and the publication of results 



have gone forward simultaneously during the year. 



One new calorimeter has been completed, another partly constructed, and 

 various auxiliary apparatus for use with these and the erlier equipments 

 have been supplied. Similarly, respiration apparatus for men, respiration 

 apparatus for dogs, and many improvements in the calorimeter section of the 

 laboratory have been made. Several pieces of apparatus have been acquird 

 also by purchase abroad, and the efficiency of the machine shop has been 

 improvd by the addition of a precision lathe. 



The investigations under way at the laboratory and outlined in the Direc- 

 tor's report are too numerous and too technical to permit further abstract or 

 parafrase. It may suffice here, therefore, to cite one of the most important 

 of these investigations in which decided progress has alredy been made, but 

 which may yet require many years to complete, namely, the nature and mean- 

 ing of metabolism in diabetes. In the researches on this recondite problem 

 the Director has thus far had the good fortune to enlist the activ cooperation 

 of Dr. Elliott P. Joslin, thru whose aid especially it has been possible to use 

 the laboratory's apparatus in detaild observations and mesurements of a 

 number of diabetic patients during the past two years. 



The preliminary results of the research just referd to were regarded as so 

 important as to justify prompt public announcement, and they have accord- 

 ingly been printed during the year in Publication No. 136. Interest in the 

 laboratory and its work is now so widespred that another volume, describing 

 in detail the respiration calorimeters and their applications, by the Director 

 and Mr.Thorne M. Carpenter, has been issued as Publication No. 123. Many 

 shorter publications from members of the research staff have appeard during 

 the year in current journals and in the proceedings of learned societies. 



The rapid growth in equipment and facilities and the equally rapid prog- 

 ress in the production of capital results from the researches at this observa- 

 tory are at once sources of surprise and gratification to the 

 Observato/ astronomical world. Work during the past year has gone 

 on with little diminution of vigor, altho illness of the 

 Director has forced him to relinquish his activities for a considerable portion 

 of the time. He has recently gone abroad for a season and the departmental 



