264 Basal Metabolism of Swine 



It will be soeii that the points tall very well on a series of similar 

 curves. The fact that the divergences of the points from the curves are 

 so small atifoi'ds some evidence of the general accuracy of the measure- 

 ments and supports the belief of the writers that they have obtained 

 the true resting metabolism. 



The curves show a very close similarity to each other as regards 

 their shape. This similarity formed the subject of a paper read by the 

 writers before the Royal Society. The paper has been printed in the 

 Proceedings of the Roijul Society' and nothing need be said on the 

 matter here. 



The circumstances of the experiment at 23"7' made it impossible to 

 get more than two satisfactory observations and these were both taken 

 before the hog had (juite reached his basal metabolism. The basal meta- 

 bolism was therefore obtained in this case by drawing a curve through 

 the two observed points parallel to the remaining curves. This procedure 

 seems to be justified by the conclusions reached in the paper read before 

 the Royal Society. 



Inspection of the curves shows that in every case the terminal hori- 

 zontal part, which gives the basal metabolism, is reached between 90 

 and 100 hours after the last meal. Tangl" states that the hogs with 

 which he worked reached their basal metabolism in 72 hours. In the 

 present experiments there was always a perceptible fall after 72 hours. 

 From some experiments which the writers are cai'rying out at present it 

 would seem that age has an etiect on the time at which the basal meta- 

 bolism is reached, for a young hog weighing about 35 lbs. reaches his 

 basal metabolism in about two days. 



The basal metabolism is found graphically from the curves in Fig. 2 

 and is tabulated in the fifth column of Table II below. 



Table II. 

 Summary for Critical Temperature. 



