164 



GASEOUS METABOLISM OF INFANTS. 



of the infants were very much under weight. This will be seen by 

 reference to table 34, which reproduces the weights of 11 of the infants 

 measured by this investigator. 1 



As Lissauer himself points out with regret, S — i was the only case 

 which could be called normal, although S — r was practically of normal 

 weight. All of the other cases were noticeably under weight, far more 

 so than our infants as a rule. Yet, in spite of this great deficiency in 

 weight, the relationship between the body-weight and the measured 

 body-surface was represented by the difference between the constant 

 10.3 used by Lissauer and 11.9, the constant of Meeh. In other 

 words, this large variation in weight produced a maximum discrepancy 

 of not over 15 per cent in the relationship between the body-surface as 

 actually measured and the body-weight. 



Table 34. — Body-weights of infants measured for body-surface by Lissauer. 



It is furthermore of interest to note, although this is probably a mere 

 coincidence, that one infant, especially cited by Lissauer as a normal 

 infant (S — i), gave a constant of 10.3. When one considers that the 

 Meeh constant of 11.9 was based upon the measurements of but two 

 infants less than a year old, it seems probable that the Lissauer formula 

 is more nearly accurate and that the difference in the relation between 

 body-weight and body-surface due to under weight is not appreciable. 

 That the opposite is true, namely, that there is no disturbance in the 

 relationsip between body-weight and body-surface when the infant is 

 over weight, lacks, as yet, experimental evidence for confirmation or 

 refutation. 



The possibility of the disturbance in the relationship between body- 

 surface and body-weight in under-nourished infants has been provided 

 for in the presentation of our data, in that the comparisons have been 

 made upon the three bases of Me eh, Lissauer, and Howland. We 



1 Lissauer, loc. cit. 



