212 NUTRITIONAL PHYSIOLOGY 



surroundings are wretched. Underfeeding produces gloom 

 and moroseness unless other circumstances are more in- 

 fluential and oppose it. 



Previous experience is something to be considered when 

 seeking to judge whether an individual ought to reduce his 

 food-supply. If he has lived in luxury and under every 

 temptation to indulgence, if he is overweight as a result 

 of his habits, short of breath and drowsy, he can probably 

 profit by the expedient. If he has been restrained from 

 satisfying his appetite by sheer poverty or by voluntary 

 sacrifices, ' if he is thin, sensitive to cold, and subject to 

 insomnia, it is quite likely that an increase of food will make 

 him stronger and more energetic. Undereating is often 

 coupled with indigestion in such a way that it is impossible 

 to say which is the cause and which the effect. Within 

 wide limits the digestive glands accommodate themselves 

 to the tax levied upon them, providing adequate amounts 

 of their juices for large or small meals. Low diet, there- 

 fore, may weaken the adaptibility of the organs it is 

 designed to spare. 



Benedict, of the Carnegie Nutrition Laboratory, has 

 proved himself an exceedingly shrewd critic of those writers 

 who go to extreme lengths in their championship of re- 

 duced feeding. He has shown that when the food supply 

 is very small the absorption is often less complete than with 

 a more liberal income, a clear sign that the digestive sys- 

 tem is not in such good working order as it might be with 

 more to do. Professor Chittenden, the foremost advocate 

 of careful restriction, agrees with his critic to this extent 

 at least: he believes that an occasional banquet is a 

 valuable means of testing the canal to see whether it has 

 retained the reserve power which it is desirable to have. 

 Many people of the economical type characterized just now 

 have lost the faculty of enjoying a large meal and cannot 

 easily increase their income when the physician recom- 

 mends it. 



The Peculiarities of Protein. While the advice to 

 limit all forms of food is constantly heard, it is the use of 



