NUTRITION LABORATORY.* 



Francis G. Benedict, Director. 



With the inception of the Nutrition Laboratory it was essential to 

 construct a building containing specially designed laboratories and to 

 equip these laboratories adequately for a series of researches which 

 would materially extend our knowledge of the nutrition of man. While 

 a considerable amount of scientific apparatus for studying this subject 

 was available at the time of the construction of the Nutrition Labora- 

 tory, nevertheless the refinement of methods and particularly the corre- 

 lation of the measurements of the various physiological factors called for 

 the development of an essentially modern technique. From the begin- 

 ning this has been considered an important function of the Laboratory. 



It was early recognized as a fundamental principle in the work of 

 the Laboratory that experimental evidence must be accumulated, first, 

 with the highest degree of accuracy possible with the present methods 

 of physiological, chemical, and psychological research, and second, in 

 amounts sufficient for drawing conclusions of far-reaching and positive 

 value, unaffected by the personal equation, which maybe made the basis 

 for formulating physiological laws. Previously a few experiments have 

 frequently served as a basis for conjectures, but such accumulation of 

 experimental evidence as is planned for the Nutrition Laboratory 

 involves physiological measurements on a scale practically never before 

 attempted. 



The amount of time usually available in connection with professorial 

 duties and the transient nature of minor assistants make it necessary 

 for workers in university laboratories to confine themselves for the 

 most part to research problems which are suitable only for intermittent 

 study, and until the foundation of research institutions the advance- 

 ment of science was in large measure dependent upon this type of 

 research. It is thus clear that the Nutrition Laboratory and similar 

 institutions have a province quite apart from that of academic labora- 

 tories; so far as possible, therefore, the researches at this Labora- 

 tory have been planned not to interfere with the usual doctorate 

 investigation of the university laboratorj^ On the other hand, the 

 researches carried out by the Nutrition Laboratorj^ are so extended 

 that the great expense of publication precludes for the most part their 

 appearance in the regular scientific journals, and adequate presentation 

 can usually be obtained only in the form of monographs issued by the 

 Carnegie Institution of Washington. 



No little difficulty has been experienced in deciding upon the method 

 of presenting the results. It has been justly claimed that the large 



♦Situated in Boston, Massachusetts. 



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