PREVIOUS INVESTIGATIONS. 23 



kg. and the final weight 22.8 kg., while they report the corresponding 

 body-surfaces as 0.997 and 0.9916 square meters, respectively. Mak- 

 ing corrections for this error in the body-surface, the difference in the 

 heat production per square meter of body-surface is slightly under 7 

 per cent. With such a subtle factor as the influence of undernutrition 

 upon metabolism, it is highly important that only periods of complete 

 muscular repose be compared. Unfortunately the authors had no 

 record of the degree of repose and in their comparisons include the 

 activity for the whole day. The apparent minimum value for the 

 first day of the first experiment is obtained from two periods with an 

 average oxygen consumption of 11.15 grams per hour. That this is 

 probably an approximate minimum value is shown by the fact that 

 the lowest hourly values for carbon-dioxide excretion are likewise 

 found during these periods. The respiratory quotients for the two 

 periods average 0.72. On the third day of the third experiment we 

 have two periods that also give low minimum values, and these again 

 are in a sense controlled by the fact that the lowest carbon-dioxide 

 excretion per hour appears in the same periods. For the oxygen con- 

 sumption the values are 10.28 and 10.23 grams, with an average of 

 10.25 grams per hour; the average respiratory quotient is 0.73. 



Calculating the calories per hour on the basis of the calorific value of 

 oxygen for these days and using the average respiratory quotients for 

 the minimum periods, we find that on the first day of the first experi- 

 ment the values are 36.7 calories per hour, 1.54 calories per kilogram 

 per hour, and 37.3 calories per square meter per hour. For the mini- 

 mum periods on the third day of the third experiment the values are 

 33.8 calories per hour, 1.48 calories per kilogram per hour, and 35.3 

 calories per square meter per hour. The nitrogen excretion in the two 

 days was for the first day 0.216 gram per hour during the period of 

 minimum metabolism, and on the last day 0.20 gram. As these are 

 essentially constant values, we may disregard them in our computation 

 of the total metabolism. 



From these figures it is seen that on the two days the metabolism, 

 both per unit of body-weight and per unit of body-surface, was essen- 

 tially constant, i. e., a difTerence of but 4 to 5 per cent. Thus the 

 entire argument of Falta, Grote, and Staehelin falls to the ground when 

 based on these experiments, as the results can not be used for positive 

 proof of the assumption that with long-continued undernutrition there 

 is an adjustment of the body to the lower food intake. 



Staehelin, 1909. — In an interesting address dealing specifically with 

 the problem of the lowering of metabolism, Staehelin^ cites many of the 

 cases in literature in which normal individuals showed a lowered metab- 

 olism and definitely emphasizes the fact that there may be an adjust- 

 ment of the metabolism to the nourishment. 



1 Staehelin, Deutsch. med. Wochenschr., 1909, 35, p. 609. 



