THE FOOD PROBLEM 273 



thorities and made widely available to the school children and 

 college students of the land. 



In September, 1917, a conference of representatives of the 

 American Navy, the offices of the Surgeon-General and 

 Quartermaster-General of the Army, U. S. Food Administra- 

 tion, the Bureau of Chemistry of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, and the Medical Department of the Council of National 

 Defense, was held in Washington " for the purpose of con- 

 sidering questions relating to the subsistence of the army." 

 In this conference some of the best American authorities on 

 nutrition voiced the opinion that the garrison ration of the U. 

 S. Army provided much more food than would seem to be re- 

 quired except for very heavy muscular work under rather 

 severe conditions of weather and climate. Contrary opinions 

 were, however, expressed by officers of the army who had had 

 much experience in small organizations without army ration. 

 The representatives of the Food Administration also referred 

 to the many complaints that had come to them from civilians 

 visiting the army camps, so far established at that time, of an 

 enormous wastage of food to be seen in those camps. The 

 discussion of these and other points in the methods and char- 

 acter of the army feeding led to the determination to have a 

 series of nutritional surveys conducted by experienced ob- 

 servers in the several army camps with a view to determine 

 quantitively the actual consumption and the actual wastage of 

 food. 



Early in September, 1917, there was organized a Food Divi- 

 sion of the Surgeon-General's office which was later established 

 by the War Department as a Division of Food and Nutrition 

 of the Medical Department of the Army. Major (later Lt.- 

 Col.) John R. Murlin, of the Sanitary Corps, a well-known 

 nutrition expert, was very active in all this work and from 

 various official reports and scientific papers published by him 

 and his associates, a large number of facts concerning army 

 feeding and rationing in general have been made generally 

 available. 



