262 EXPERIMENT STATION EECORD. 



for an average family of 5 persons, father, mother, and 3 children under 14 

 years of age, in New York City at the present time." It indicates that such a 

 family can live under ordinary conditions fairly comfortably in New York on 

 from $1,050 to $1,150 per year, and " that an income of between $1,100 and 

 $1,200 is probably necessary for an average family to maintain unaided a 

 normal standard of living , . . — that is to say, for a family to live in such a 

 way as to preserve health, mind, character, self-respect, and proper condi- 

 tions of family life." 



Advantage is taken of the diet kitchen of the hospital to give instruction 

 to the women in the preparation of food, and instruction has also been given 

 in personal and home hygiene and in the care of children. 



The summary gives details of the success of the project as a sociological 

 experiment and information of interest in connection with the general subject 

 of institution management. 



[Cooperative grocery of the New York Association for Improving the 

 Condition of the Poor] (Survey, SI (WU), No. 21, pp. 636, 637}.— A brief 

 description is given of the project recently instituted by this society for the 

 purchase and distribution of the groceries required for its relief work. 



" The new method is simply that of buying wholesale, and of running a store 

 of the association's own, where the visitor orders her food instead of getting 

 it at the corner grocery." In the first 10 weeks a net saving of 22.8 per cent 

 was effected, the total expenditure being $6,860.22. Each association visitor 

 makes out her food orders daily, using the association dietitian's guides, which 

 indicate the supplies needed in a unit of time for families of different sizes 

 and circumstances. Orders are filled and delivery made on the following day. 



Emergency demands are still met by purchase in the ordinary way, cases re- 

 quiring haste being under 10 per cent of the total. " The store is serving also 

 as a laboratory in experimenting with problems relating to the purchase and 

 distribution of food." 



It is stated that this enterprise grew out of the success of the association's 

 cooperative project described above. 



The fundamental basis of nutrition, G. Lusk (New Haven, Conn., and 

 London, 191 'i. pp. 6 +()2).— Following a historical introduction, the author dis- 

 cusses the body's constant need for fuel and protein ; habits of diet ; and beri- 

 beri, which is classed as a nutritional disease due to a deficiency in the diet of 

 a substance or substances for which the name " vitamin " has been proposed. 



In the final chapter, on the monetary value of foods, data collected by F. C. 

 Gephart regarding the cost and nutritive value of the portions of various foods 

 sold from the counter of a well-known chain system of restaurants in New York 

 and other cities are included which serve to emphasize the extreme variability 

 of the purchasing power of money when expended for food. In general, the 

 author proposes that foods should be sold on the basis of their energy value and 

 of the proportion of the total energy contributed by proteins. "The proteins of 

 the foodstuff's could be labeled A, B, and C according to their physiological 

 value, and to group D might belong gelatin and some other proteins which can 

 not replace the body protein that is continually wearing away." The relative 

 value of different proteins, as determined by the products which they yield on 

 hydrolysis, as well .'is other recent work on the nature and functions of protein, 

 are discussed. 



As the author points out, " since the efliciency of labor depends upon its 

 energy and constant repair, it is certainly of no small moment that the citizen 

 should know how best to maintain the machine at a maximum of efllciency. 

 Not only that, but in times of trouble he should know where to turn to find 

 nourishment in the form which is best and cheapest. ... If. through the 



