DIGESTION EXPERIMENTS. 



297 



Table 38. 



-Nitrogen utilized and energy available from food in digestion period with reduced 

 diet — Squad B. 



lowest value (0.53) appeared with Ham, who likewise had the lowest 

 nitrogen intake. The so-called digestible nitrogen ranged from 6.81 to 

 7.64 grams, with an average of 7.32 grams. The nitrogen utilized 

 varied only from 83 to 93 per cent, with an average of 89 per cent. 

 Special attention should be given to the fecal nitrogen, for we have 

 here conditions which are exactly comparable to those of Professor 

 Chittenden's earher research.^ In the 6-day digestion period with 

 Professor Chittenden's soldiers from January 12 to 17, 1904, an aver- 

 age of 49.4 grams of nitrogen was ingested by each subject, while the 

 nitrogen in feces varied from 4.45 to 12.10 grams, with wide variations 

 from the average (8.46 grams) in a majority of cases. Similar irregu- 

 larities were noted in the digestion period from February 29 to March 6, 

 1904, and likewise from March 28 to April 1, 1904, although in this 

 latter period the agreement was much closer. These experiments of 

 Chittenden strongly suggest a disturbance of digestion with low 

 diet, and it is difficult to account for the irregularity of the values. 

 With our squad of 12 men such abnormalities did not appear, even 

 though the nitrogen intakes were actually somewhat lower than those 

 in Professor Chittenden's study and in all probability the caloric re- 

 quirements were somewhat similar. It thus can be stated that with 

 a group of college students on a very greatly reduced diet, disturbances 

 in the proportion of nitrogen utiHzed were not found. The avail- 

 abihty of the energy was not far from that found with Squad A, 



* Chittenden, Physiological economy in nutrition, New York, 1907 (first issue, 1904), p. 131; 

 see, also, in this connection, Benedict, Am. Joum. Physiol., 1906, 16, p. 420. 



