PREVIOUS INVESTIGATIONS. 19 



was again reduced to 63.2 per cent. As during the realimentation 

 period the animal had gained in weight to more than 20 per cent and 

 even during the second period of lowered food intake it was 17 per 

 cent above weight/ the investigator further gradually reduced the 

 food to bring the body-weight to the original point. To do this it was 

 finally necessary to reduce the food to approximately one-third of the 

 normal amount and continue this diet for four weeks. The author 

 concludes from these experiments that the sudden curtailment of food 

 had a much greater effect upon the metabolism than a gradual reduc- 

 tion of food intake. At no period of the realimentation process did 

 the gaseous metabolism exceed normal ; in fact, when the food intake 

 was two-thirds that of the normal amount, both the oxygen consump- 

 tion and carbon-dioxide production approximated 75 to 80 per cent 

 of the normal. During the period of very greatly reduced intake, when 

 the food finally reached but 30 per cent of the maintenance amount, 

 no gaseous metabolism measurements were made. 



With a third dog the food was reduced to 50 per cent of normal, the 

 reduction being made at the rate of 1 per cent of the food quantity per 

 day. After the reduction reached 80, 70, 60, and 50 per cent, a 3-day 

 study of the gaseous metabolism was made at each of these points. 

 The whole experiment lasted 87 days. The body-weight at the end of 

 the low feeding was 13 per cent below the initial weight; the gaseous 

 metabolism per kilogram decreased with oxygen to 94.6 per cent and 

 with carbon dioxide to 86 per cent of the initial quantities. 



Pashutin points out, with a conservatism which could well be 

 followed by many modern writers, that his conclusions are based upon 

 only two complete experiments in which the metabolism during reali- 

 mentation was studied, and therefore he ascribes no great value to 

 them. They are, however, at variance with those of Albitsky, who 

 noted an increment in oxidation^ during the realimentation periods 

 following starvation, while in Pashutin's experiments the chronic under- 

 nutrition resulted in a distinct lowering of metabolism per kilogram of 

 body-weight. Even when the maintenance diet was exceeded, the 

 gaseous metabolism did not reach normal, thus indicating a distinct 

 lowering in the plane of metabolic activity. 



Svenson, 1901. — Svenson,^ interpreting many observations in the 

 earlier literature as indicating lowered energy requirements with 

 chronic undernutrition, attacked the problem from the standpoint of 

 changes in metabolism during convalescence from typhoid fever or 

 pneumonia. He sought to discover if, during convalescence, there was 

 an attempt made by the organism to economize by reducing oxidation, 

 as he considers is done in chronic undernutrition. Employing the 



^ These conditions seem inexplicable except on the ground that the initial equilibrium weight 



of 6,221 grams was in reality overweight, and accompanied by excess food intake. 

 ^This, we believe, is due in large part to the larger food intake (see page 16). 

 ^Svenson, Zeitschr. f. klin. Med., 1901, 43, p. 86. 



