NUTRITION LABORATORY.* 



Francis G. Benedict, Director. 



The Nutrition Laboratory was founded primarily for the study of 

 the basic laws of vital activity with special reference to the trans- 

 formations of matter and energy in the human body. While a large 

 number of biological problems are studied by making use of animals 

 and domestic fowl and applying the results to the physiology of man, 

 in the final use of such data the special physiological conditions obtain- 

 ing with man should invariably be taken into consideration. This 

 makes observations directly upon man of the highest value to human 

 physiology. Most observations on animals may readily be made in 

 laboratories without extraordinary equipment ; the conditions for some 

 experiments on man are hkewise easily met by most university 

 laboratories, but the extended study of many problems in human 

 physiology, requiring the use of several subjects, can rarely be at- 

 tempted outside of special research laboratories. Consequently, 

 laboratories possessing unusual equipment for physiological research 

 are under a moral obligation to contribute, as far as possible, directly 

 and primarily to our knowledge of human physiology and to use the 

 lower animals chiefly in supplementary problems and when the 

 inherent difficulties in using men as subjects considerably restrict the 

 lines of inquiry that may profitably be followed. 



Data on animals may readily be accumulated bj-^ a laboratory assist- 

 ant under supervision, l)ut the serious problem of observations on 

 human individuals necessarily limits definitely the responsibility to the 

 trained observer. The researches in the Nutrition Laboratory have 

 graduallj^ developed until finally the Director's responsibihty for its 

 scientific work is shared equally with Doctors H. M. »Smith, T. M. Car- 

 penter, and W. R. Miles. Central editorial and computing bureaus 

 under the charge of Miss A. N. Darhng and Mr. W. H. Lesfie, respec- 

 tively, aid in the general preparation of material for publication. 



This administrative plan insures the completion of problems begun, 

 avoids the difficulties of non-resident attempts to prepare previously 

 accumulated material for publication, and provides a systematic 

 method for both the pubhcation of results and the treatment of 

 material. This does not imply by any means a similarity of treatment 

 in detail and the arbitrary rulings of an editorial bureau, as each of the 

 four responsible investigators assumes full responsibihty not only for 

 the accumulation of experimental evidence but for the preparation of 

 his report. On the other hand, central computing and editorial 



*S)tiia(ed .it Boston, Massachusetts. 



