EFFECTS OF INANITION ON THE BODY AS A WHOLE 79 



Depaul ('49) and others. The plan was opposed, however, by Jorg (1806), v. 

 Siebold (1806), Osiander (1820) and others (cf. Cyr '69), as ineffective or as 

 dangerous to the mother. 



Prochownick ('89, '01) modified the plan by restricting, not the quantity, 

 but the quality, of the diet, making it rich in protein, but poor in carbohydrates 

 and water. This modified diet has been approved by Fraenkel ('96) and other 

 clinicians, although Bondi ('13) stated that it is unsupported by either clinical 

 experience or animal experiments. Prochownick ('17) still maintained his 

 position, although admitting that the restricted war diet produced no evident 

 decrease in average birth weight. 



The evidence afforded by the birth weights in Europe during the war period 

 is of much interest. In Germany the general shortage of food resulted in an 

 average loss in adult body weight of about 15 per cent, as estimated by Rubner 

 ('19). Kettner ('16) of Charlottenburg claimed the appearance of an atrophic 

 type of newborn, but later ('16a) admitted that it could hardly be due to mater- 

 nal underfeeding. A statistical comparison with the prewar records by Tschirch 

 ('16) in Jena, Mossmer ('16) in Posen, Momm ('16) in Freiburg, Ruge ('16), 

 Bendix ('16), Rabnow ('16), Briining ('18) and Linde ('19) in Berlin, Hofmann 

 ('19) in Rostock, Soergel ('18) in Halle, Loenne ('18) in Bonn, Schmidt ('18) 

 in Tubingen, Jahreiss ('19) in Augsburg, and Linke ('21) in Heidelberg (?) 

 reveal no significant change in the German birth weight during the war period. 

 Beninde ('19), however claimed that by 191 8 the conditions were worse, result- 

 ing in a decreased birth weight in some regions. David ('22) found an average 

 apparent decrease of 3-3.75 per cent in weight of the newborn, and of 2.5-3.2 per 

 cent in length, but did not establish a relation to the skrinkage in diet during 

 the war period. 



In Austria (Vienna), Peller ('17), Richter ('17) and Schauta ('17) found no 

 appreciable reduction in average birth weight. Similarly, Murray ('24) found 

 no significant decrease of the average birth weight in London during the war 

 period. In Belgium, Demoor and Slosse (/20) claim that the prewar birth 

 weight of about 3,000 g. was reduced to an average of 2,500 g. during the 

 war famine. It seems probable that in most of the countries involved in 

 the war, the food shortage, although markedly affecting the general population, 

 was not severe enough to reduce the weight of the newborn, excepting districts 

 of actual famine. Ivanovsky ('23) states that in Russia, although the number of 

 births decreased enormously, there was a marked increase in the premature or 

 stillborn, also in the occurrence of monsters and various anomalies. Troizky 

 found no decrease of birth weight in 22,000 Russian cases (up to 1917). 



Effect on Sex Ratio. — In the first three chapters, the evidence was reviewed 

 as to the effect of nutrition upon sex determination among plants and inverte- 

 brates. It appears that in many species the effect of malnutrition is to produce 

 a preponderance of males. While in some cases this may be due merely to a 

 selective mortality, in others it appears probable that nutrition may, under 

 certain conditions, affect the sex from the beginning. 



Among vertebrates the evidence as to the influence of nutrition upon sex 

 determination is more conflicting and less conclusive. In the human species, 

 there is a widespread tradition that relatively more males are born following 



