270 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



Furthermore, by direct visits to the laboratories, advance information 

 is obtained of research in progress, particularly at the present time, 

 when, on account of the almost prohibitive cost of printing, many 

 papers and larger reports of important and extensive studies are 

 delayed in publication for a long time. Valuable details of laboratory 

 equipment, which never appear in any way in publication, may 

 likewise be discovered by going to the source. Aside from the more im- 

 mediate personal and laboratory gains of such visits, it may reasonably 

 be considered the duty of a man who is employed by an institution that 

 has been founded for the ''improvement of mankind" to make some 

 effort to familiarize the world with the work of the laboratory which he 

 represents and of the institution of which that laboratory is a part. 



During the current year. Dr. Miles has visited laboratories in Eng- 

 land, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and to some 

 extent in Germany and Austria. He attended three scientific meetings : 

 the British Psychological Association, London; British Physiological 

 Association, Cambridge; and the Physiological Congress in Paris, 

 gi\dng papers at the latter two meetings. On June 16, in Amsterdam, 

 Dr. Miles delivered an address on the work of the Nutrition Laboratory 

 of the Carnegie Institution of Washington at the first pubUc meeting in 

 Holland regarding the establishment in that country of a national 

 institute for nutrition. 



Owing to conditions due to the war, it has been six years since the 

 Nutrition Laboratory has been represented by a staff member in 

 Europe. During this time a considerable number of changes have 

 occurred in the personnel and organization of many foreign institutes 

 and departments of physiological w^ork, and it was deemed of great 

 importance for the Laboratory to come into intimate touch with the 

 conditions existing in present-day European science. Dr. Miles was 

 everywhere greeted with the greatest cordiality, thus emphasizing that 

 the interchange of such visits is bound to result in better international 

 understandings. 



The unique importance of nutritional conditions and of nutritional 

 problems during the recent war, with the persistent shortage of food 

 still bitterly experienced in certain parts of Europe, made it especially 

 profitable for this Laboratory to secure some first-hand data on present 

 nutritional conditions in those countries, especially the Central Powers, 

 and to have a representative inspect to some extent the methods and 

 work of certain relief organizations operating in the latter countries. 

 With others of our staff. Dr. Miles was investigating the problem of 

 undernutrition in this Laboratory during the war and could profitably 

 observe the gigantic enforced experiment which has been taking place 

 in Europe. 



On account of the prevaihng rate of money exchange, it has been 

 extremely difficult for European scientists to purchase American 



