CHARGES FORD LANGWORTHY, PH. D. 289 



Charles Ford Langworthy, Ph. D., Expert in Nutrition, Department 

 of Agriculture: If the question should be raised as to the relation of 

 nutrition investigations and other work in home economics to the 

 prevention of infant mortality, it may be answered by recalling the 

 fact that the mother must be well nourished if the child is to have a 

 fair start. Furthermore, the mother must not be broken down by 

 overwork as she easily may be if her household is not rightly man- 

 aged. From the time the child is born the problem of nutrition is 

 one of great importance throughout his whole life. 



The Department of Agriculture considers that the study of nutri- 

 tion is one of its functions, since all food products, both animal and 

 vegetable, are primarily of agricultural origin, and surely the utiliza- 

 tion of agricultural products is as important a feature as their produc- 

 tion and their distribution. Another reason for the Department's inter- 

 est in this work is found in the fact that a large proportion of the 

 agricultural colleges, or, to give them their right name, the colleges 

 of agriculture and mechanic arts, give courses in home economics, in 

 most cases similar to the work which has been described in the papers 

 by Miss Rose on the home economics work at Cornell and Miss Mar- 

 latt on the work of the home economics department, College of Agri- 

 culture, University of Wisconsin. 



The nutrition investigations of the Office of Experiment Stations 

 of the Department of Agriculture were instituted some twenty years 

 ago by Professor Atwater and have had for their object the ac- 

 cumulation of data regarding the composition and nutritive value of 

 American food materials, studies of the digestibility of foods of dif- 

 ferent sorts, effects of different methods of cooking on composition 

 and nutritive value, the relative value of foods as sources of energy 

 in the human body, and other related questions. An important fea- 

 ture of the work has been the preparation of technical bulletins re- 

 porting the results of investigations and popular summaries designed 

 to present the results of experiment and research in such a way that 

 they may be useful to the housekeeper and home maker. Some of these 

 popular bulletins have to do with milk, with eggs, with cereal foods, 

 with fruits, and with other common food materials. The care of food 

 in the home and other topics which have to do with household 

 management are also discussed. That the bulletins have proved use- 

 ful and are appreciated by the people at large is shown by the numer- 

 ous demands made for them by pupils in high schools and in colleges, 

 by institution managers, and particularly by home makers. 



In connection with the nutrition work of the Office of Experiment 

 Stations a very valuable piece of apparatus has been elaborated, which 

 is called the respiration calorimeter. Wiith this instrument it is possi- 

 ble to measure with great accuracy the total income and outgo of 

 matter and energy in the human body and to study many problems 

 which have to do with the utilization of food and its value as a source 

 of energy in the body, and other matters connected with the body 

 considered as a machine. Though the method of experimenting is 

 very technical, yet homely problems of everyday interest are studied 

 as well as those which are more abstruse. For instance, at the present 

 time studies are being made of the energy which the body expends 

 in digesting cheese in comparison with meat, in order that something 

 definite may be said regarding the ease of digestion of these two im- 

 portant foodstuffs. 



