FOODS — HUMAN NUTRITION. 163 



meat products and the least iu the cereals. The prices of practically all the 

 products mentioned in this report showed an increase, 



A study of Chicago's stockyards community. — III, Wages and family 

 budgets in the Chicago stockyards district, J. C. Kennedy et al. {Chicago: 

 Univ. Chicago, 1914, pp. 80). — This study of the Chicago stockyards com- 

 munity was carried on under the direction of the Board of the University of 

 Chicago Settlement. The results are considered In connection with wasje sta- 

 tistics from other industries employing skilled labor. Many nationalities were 

 represented. Of the 1S4 families S8 were Polish and 08 were Lithuanian. 

 Quotations from the summary follow : 



"One hundred and thirty-one families rented their quarters. The average 

 rental per family was $107.83, or 13.2 per cent of the total expenditure. One 

 hundred of the 131 renting families occupied flats of four rooms. The 68 

 Lithuanian families had on an average 4.12 lodgers per family. In one case 13 

 people were crowded together in four small basement rooms. 



" The average expenditure for foodstuffs and liquors was $441.83 per family, 

 or 53.62 per cent of the total expenditure [the amount expended for alcoholic 

 liquors being 4.42 per cent of the total expenditures in 180 families using itj. 



" The minimum amount necessary to support a family of five eflaciently in the 

 stockyards district is $800 i>er year, or $15.40 per week." 



Workingmen's family budgets for seventy families in Holland (8oc. 

 Democrat. Studie-Club Amsterdam Rap. 69 [1912], pp. 112). — This investiga- 

 tion was made by the Social-Democratic Study Club of Amsterdam. The 

 methods followed in this study are described and the results reported and sum- 

 marized. Expenditin-e for food was one of the subjects considered. 



The statistical study of dietaries, a reply to Professor Karl Pearson, 

 D. N. Paton (Biometrika, 10 {1914), No. 1, pp. 169-172).— In reply to the 

 criticism previously noted (E. S. R., 30, p. 560) the author points out that no 

 matter what the statistical knowledge, it can not be applied without a knowl- 

 edge of the subject matter, in this case the physiology and chemistry of 

 nutrition. 



The statistical study of dietaries. — A rejoinder, K. Pearson {Biometrika, 

 10 {1914), No. 1, pp. 172-174).— The author defends the importance of statis- 

 tics and apparently believes he has taken into account the different chemical 

 and other necessary factors. 



[This and the papers noted above make it clear that expert knowledge of 

 statistical data is an important consideration in discussing the results of scien- 

 tific investigation and make equally clear the difiiculties in applying statistical 

 methods without full knowledge of the subject matter to which they are applied. 

 In this particular case the critic apparently has not fully appreciated the sig- 

 nificance of such things as the laws of growth, the dual functions of food, and 

 <he influence of age. sex, and nnisculnr work upon nutritive requirements.] 



The influence of the total fuel value of a dietary upon the quantity of 

 vitamin required to prevent beri-beri, W. L. Braddon and E. A. Cooper {Brit. 

 Med. Jour., No. 2790 {1914), pp. 1S48, 1349).— The authors discuss the general 

 question and summarize experimental data with reference to the total fuel value 

 of the food supply. They state that " by doubling the carbohydrate ration 

 of the dietary [of pigeons and poultry] the rate of onset of polyneuritis was 

 thus actually increased as much as from two to four fold. The results so far 

 obtained demonstrated that the amount of antineuritic substance required by 

 the organism increased with the quantity of carbohydrate ingested. 



" There are at least two possible explanations of this phenomenon. First, the 

 view already advanced by Funk [E. S. R. 31, p. 463] . . . that the 



