SECTION VIII. 



NUTRITION AND HEAT PRODUCTION AND 

 REGULATION. 



CHAPTER XLVII. 

 GENERAL METHODS-HISTORY OF THE PROTEIN FOOD. 



Urxder the head of nutrition or general metaboUsm we include 

 usually all those changes that occur in our foodstuffs from the time 

 that they are absorbed from the alimentary canal until they are 

 eliminated in the excretions. In many of these processes the oxygen 

 absorbed from the lungs takes a most important part, and the 

 changes directly due to this element, the physiological oxidations 

 of the body, can not be separated from the general metabolic phe- 

 nomena of the tissues. As was said in another place, the respiratory 

 histor}^ of oxygen ceases after this element has reached the tissues; 

 its subsequent participation in the chemical changes of the organ- 

 ism forms an integral part of the nutritional processes. These latter 

 processes are varied and complex and only partially understood. 

 For the sake of smiplicity in presentation it is convenient to con- 

 sider separately each of the so-called foodstuffs, — the proteins, 

 carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, water, and inorganic salts, — and 

 attempt to trace its nutritive history as far as possible from the 

 time it is absorbed into the blood until it is ehminated from the 

 body in the form of excretory products. Before undertaking this 

 description it is desirable to call attention to certain general 

 methods and conceptions that have been developed in connection 

 with this part of physiology. 



Nitrogen Equilibrium. — Among our main foodstuffs the pro- 

 teins are characterized by containing nitrogen. After this ma- 

 terial is metabohzed in the body the nitrogen is eliminated in 

 various forms, chiefly in the urine, but to a smaller extent in the 

 feces and sweat. In the feces, moreover, there may be present 

 some undigested protein which, although taken with the food, 

 has never really entered the body. It is evident that the urine, 

 feces (and sweat) may be collected during a given period and 

 analyzed to determine their contents in nitrogen. The sweat is 



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