672 VITALITY AND EFFICIENCY WITH RESTRICTED DIET. 



to point out that in our test flesh-abstainers did not enter, as both the 

 men in Squad A and those in the competing squad were flesh-eaters. 



Whatever opinion one may have as to this test being a true measure 

 of endurance, and obviously with the variance between the data secured 

 by Professor Fisher and by us in our experiment, the test is open to 

 great criticism, it is clear that the members of Squad A as a whole made 

 equally as good a record as the competing control squad. Such tests 

 are at best so uncertain that a strict comparison may not properly be 

 made between the observations of Professor Fisher and our own. It 

 was believed by the spectators that the men in Squad A were more 

 frequently cautioned and kept to the mark more rigidly than the 

 members of the volunteer squad, inasmuch as the arms were extended 

 without appreciable lowering more accurately and more consistently. 

 There was much alternate sagging and raising of arms, however, with 

 both squads. To the observer it would appear as if both squads met 

 identically the same conditions. We have here, if not an actual test 

 of endurance, certainly a test of comparative endurance between a 

 squad on restricted diet and a squad on ordinary diet. 



Emphasis should be laid upon the fact that owing to the coal- 

 conservation measures in force at that time, the gymnasium was 

 extremely cold. Most of the spectators and some of the assistants 

 wore overcoats and hats, while the competitors wore ordinary indoor 

 clothing or light sweaters and no hats. Many of the members of 

 Squad A complained of cold hands, and the experimenters observed 

 that the hands of these men were distinctly blue with the cold. 

 Furthermore, Squad A had been through a rather drastic athletic 

 program, including two series of gymnastic exercises, diving, and 

 particularly the exhausting "chinning-the-bar" tests in the morning 

 about 1^ or 2 hours before this endurance test took place. The ele- 

 ment of competition also entered into the endurance test, for each 

 member of Squad A was determined to outlast his opponent on the 

 volunteer squad. Probably this stimulus did not obtain as strongly 

 with the volunteer squad, for they had relatively little to gain by a 

 prolonged test, although naturally they did not want to be defeated 

 by their supposedly undernourished competitors. 



The only interpretation permissible from this endurance test is 

 that the members of Squad A, after living 4 months on a consider- 

 ably reduced diet, showed an endurance, as measured by even this 

 imperfect test, equally as good as that of 11 men selected from the 

 college body who were living on full diet. 



GENERAL CONCLUSIONS REGARDING PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND ENDURANCE. 



From the four main indices of capacity for physical performance, 

 namely, pedometer records, activity records, subjective impressions, 

 and endurance test, the first two and the last have demonstrated no 

 material difference between Squad A and groups of students living on 



