EFFECT OF ALCOHOL ON FOWL 171 



III. BODY WEIGHT 



Stockard and Papanicolaou (38, p. 72) make the following 

 statement regarding their guinea pigs: 



The general condition of the animals under the fume treatment is 

 very good. They all continue to grow if the treatment is begun before 

 reaching their full size, and become fat and vigorous, taking plenty of 

 food and behaving in a typically normal manner. .... Alco- 

 holized animals are usually fat, but there is no fatty accumulation in 

 the parenchyma of any of the organs. 



They give no exact data regarding body weights. 



In planning the experiments it was felt to be highly important 

 to collect exact information on the changes in body weight 

 which occurred. Clinical experience has abundantly demon- 

 strated that body weight changes, in spite of theu' rough and 

 inexact character, furnish an index of general metabolic con- 

 ditions and changes which is by no means to be despised. Its 

 value is greatly enhanced if parallel data from proper controls 

 are also at hand. The treated birds in these experiments have 

 been weighed at intervals of about one month, except that no 

 records are at hand for October 1, 1915. Owing to an unfortu- 

 nate misunderstanding the control birds were not weighed as 

 frequently as the treated birds. 



The available data on body weight in grams are given m 

 table 3, and figures 1 and 2, 



From table 3 and the diagrams the following points are to be 

 noted : 



1. The majority of the birds used in the experiment had 

 plainly not completed their growth at the time the experiment 

 started. This is shown by the fact that even with those birds 

 whose treatment did not begin until December 1 or Januaiy 1 

 the same rise in body weight is shown in the earlier months 

 as for those whose treatment began in November (cf. table 4 

 in I). That this initial rise in the body weight curves can not 

 be due entirely to growth is proven, however, by the fact that 

 9 9 1572, 1573, 1574 and 1575 show it just as clearly as do any 

 of the other birds. But these four birds were nearly a year 



