488 NUTRITIONAL REQUIREMENTS 



fore-sight. It makes little difference how little influence 

 physiologists may individually possess ; physiology is never- 

 theless a powerful mistress. When man has found something 

 nature requires for life, he has thus far at least generally 

 known a way to procure it. 



Vegetarianism. This, then, brings us to the considera- 

 tion of the important subject of vegetarianism. 



There is no question, of course, but that human beings 

 are capable of continuously maintaining their bodily and 

 mental ability even on unmixed vegetable diet. A Japan- 

 ese author has shown, from collective inquiry of two hundred 

 persons who have all exceeded a century of life, that about 

 one-third lived mainly upon vegetarian food (had scarcely 

 once a week eaten even fish) ; about half were, however, for 

 years strict vegetarians, who refused eggs, milk and animal 

 fat. Among the Japanese Buddhists of strict sect there 

 seem to be individuals who manage to get on with a remark- 

 ably small amount of food (consisting of rice, radishes and 

 various greens), and who acquire a condition in which they 

 can very readily handle vegetables, but for whom a sudden 

 change to animal food is decidedly harmful. 14 (According 

 to statements of various authors 0.6 gram of protein pro 

 kilogram a day may be regarded as the low limit of protein 

 requirement.) 15 



Generally, however, investigations of recent years are 

 not favorable to vegetarianism. Thus Caspari 16 from his 

 intensive studies regards a pure vegetable diet, because of 

 the difficulty of utilizing it in the body, its insipidity and its 

 large volume, as injudicious and its merits (low amount of 

 uric acid forming substances, etc.) as doubtful. Individual 



"G. Yukawa (Osaka), Arch. d. Verdauungskr., 15, 471, 740, 1909; cf. 

 also W. G. Little and Charles E. Harris (Liverpool), Biochem. Jour., 2, 230, 

 1907. 



15 C. von Noorden, E. Voit and Constantinidi, Caspari; cf. Hammersten's 

 Lehrb., p. 858, 1910. 



18 W. Caspari, Pflfiger's Arch., 109, 473, 1905; cf. also the Literature in 

 Stahelin (Basel), Zeitschr. f. Biol., 49, 199, 1907. 



