202 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



During- the past fifty years many attempts have been made by exper- 

 imenters in Europe and in this country to find means for accurately 

 measuring' the income and outgo of matter and energy in the animal 

 organism. In a number of instances noteworthy success has been 

 attained, as in the determination of the balance of income and outgo 

 of nitrogen and carbon by the use of the Pettenkofer respiration appa- 

 ratus in its various modifications; in the determination of the same 

 factors and with them the heat given off from the body by the respira- 

 tion calorimeter of Rubuer, and of nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, and heat 

 by the respiration calorimeter of Eosenthal. All of these are of Ger- 

 man origin, as are the apparatus and method of Zuutz for the study of 

 the ratio of income of oxygen and outgo of carbon dioxid, by which 

 most interesting and valuable results have been obtained. In Sweden 

 Sonden and Tigerstedt have devised an ingenious apparatus and 

 method for the study of the excretion of carbon dioxid, with which 

 very useful researches are being carried on. Accounts of the work of 

 Atwater and Rosa in this country with the respiration calorimeter have 

 been mentioned elsewhere. 1 



A noteworthy instance of what Russian scientists have been doing 

 in this line is found in the researches conducted for a number of years in 

 the laboratories of the Imperial Military Medical Academy at St. Peters- 

 burg, under the direction of Professors Pashutin, Danilevski, and 

 Pavlov, Dr. Likliachev, and others. Professor Pashutin has devised 

 a new and ingenious form of respiration calorimeter in which extensive 

 studies have been made during the past twelve years upon the respira- 

 tory exchange of gases and the elimination of heat by the bodies of 

 animals. Some five years ago alarge respiration calorimeter for experi- 

 ments with man was built on Professor Pashutin's plan in his labora- 

 tory under the immediate direction of one of his pupils and assistants, 

 Dr. Likhachev, who has published accounts of the apparatus and of 

 a number of most interesting experiments made with it. An interest- 

 ing research by Dr. Studenski with the same apparatus has just been 

 published. The respiration calorimeters of Professor Pashutin and 

 Dr. Likhachev and the methods of experimental inquiry adopted in 

 their use rank among the most ingeuious which have been devised. 

 Among the familiar European devices none seem to provide for more 

 satisfactory determinations of the respiratory exchange of carbon and 

 hydrogen and for the determination of heat given off from the body. 

 In the same school is a laboratory of physiological chemistry under the 

 direction of Prof. A. Danilevski. I Hiring a number of years past special 

 attention has been given to digestive proteolysis and many results of 

 importance have been reached. One extremely interesting observa- 

 tion by Professor Danilevski and his pupils was the subject of a paper 

 presented at the Congress in Moscow. This paper showed that proteose 

 and peptone are transformed into a substance closely resembling a coagu- 



'U. S. Dept. Agr., Office of Experiment Stations Hull. 44 (E. S. R.,8, p. 821). 



