MISCELLANEOUS METHODS AND APPARATUS. 77 



once or twice each day and the results carefully recorded. Ideally 

 each pedometer should have been set to accord with the uniform length 

 of step for the individual subject, but it was not feasible. 



Many of the subjects were unusually interested in physical activities 

 and some were specially proficient. Frequent reference is made in their 

 personal histories to incidents calling for unusual muscular activity. 

 Thus, some of our men ran in cross-country teams, others devoted con- 

 siderable time to instructing gymnasium classes, » swinaming, tennis, 

 football, hockey, or bicycle riding. Records were made of this unusual 

 activity. Finally, one of the college instructors outlined in another 

 connection a course in personal efficiency, which called for an exact 

 cataloguing of each day's activities and approximated in a way a gross 

 motion study. The personal records of the few of our squads who took 

 the course are of special interest for comparison with other men who 

 took the course but were not on diet, as they indicate to what extent 

 the members of the reduced diet squads lived up to the physical and 

 mental activities of their college mates. The men were urged not to 

 curtail their college activities, either intellectual or physical, and while 

 we could have absolutely no control in this matter, we believe that, in 

 general, they did not try to save themselves. In several instances we 

 are perfectly certain that activities were curtailed and in other cases, 

 particularly during the period when extra efforts were made to reduce 

 weight, the physical activity of some men greatly exceeded that usual 

 for them and surpassed that of their fellow students. These personal 

 records are therefore of unusual assistance as an indication of the 

 vaUdity of the comparison of the men on this squad with their con- 



freres 



CLINICAL EXAMINATION. 



It was not sufficient to assume that our subjects were healthy young 

 men or, as in earher researches with normal individuals, "presumably 

 in good health," but the changes possibly resulting from the reduced 

 diet were considered of sufficient moment to be noted by an expert 

 chnician in an ordinary routine clinical examination. It was our good 

 fortune to enfist the interest of Dr. Harry W. Goodall, who made a 

 careful and helpful study of the subject of the prolonged fasting experi- 

 ment reported from this Laboratory in 1915.^ Dr. Goodall saw the 

 men in Squad A at practically every visit to Boston, but unfortunately 

 could not observe them prior to the commencement of the reduced 

 ration. The men began the reduced diet on October 4, 1917; Dr. 

 Goodall's first examination was on October 13, 1917. Squad B was 

 hkewise examined on January 5, prior to restriction in diet, and 

 subsequently when living on the reduced diet. The examination was 

 carried out according to the methods used b y our foremost clinicians. 



1 Benedict, Carnegie Inst. Wash. Pub. No. 203. 1915. 



