1893.] in the Production of Muscular Work. 481 



tion I have for some time been engaged upon, as regards the role 

 played by sugar in the animal organism, to try and ascertain, by 

 direct experiment, if sugar when taken as food is actually a supporter 

 of muscular energy a point of great value to be decided at the 

 present moment, when sugar is so cheap that its use need no longer 

 be restricted to that of a mere palatable condiment, but it might, 

 perhaps, be profitably added to the daily diet of the working man as 

 a muscular power-producing element. 



With the object of, if possible, settling this point, I availed myself 

 of the opportunity I had of making a series of experiments upon 

 myself with Professor Mosso's ergograph, while working in the 

 autumn of 1892 in the Physiological Laboratory at Turin.* 



The amount of muscular energy developed by sugar was calculated 

 by the quantity of work that could be done by the muscles of the 

 middle finger of each hand, in a given time, before fatigue set in. 

 And I think that the results obtained by experimenting with the 

 fingers may not unreasonably be regarded as a reliable indication of 

 the effects of sugar on the other muscles of the body. 



Throughout the whole time of the experiments, except when it is 

 specially mentioned to the contrary, not only was the mode of life, 

 as regards the amount of sleep, &c., kept uniform and the same kind 

 of food taken, but, as nearly as possible, in the same quantities, along 

 with varying amounts of sugar taken. 



Each separate experiment with the ergograph was repeated every 

 two hours, a voluntary muscular contraction being made every two 

 seconds. Being right-handed, a 4-kilo. weight was used for the right 

 finger and a 3-kilo. one for the weaker left. 



The total height to which the weight was raised, being multiplied 

 by the weight, expressed in kilogrammetres the amount of work ac- 

 complished. 



The amount of work done was calculated by two methods : firstly, 

 the total amount of work accomplished up till fatigue set in ; secondly, 

 the amount of work accomplished by each thirty voluntary muscular 

 contractions. The diurnal variations in the amount of work performed, 

 as pointed out by Lombard,f and confirmed in my own experiments, 

 rendered it necessary to compare the results at precisely the same 

 hours on different days, in order to avoid error in drawing conclusions 

 of the value of sugar, as the muscular working capacity varies at 

 different times of the day. 



The first step was to ascertain the value of sugar when, taken alone 



* I here beg to express my warmest thanks to Professor Mosso for kindly placing 

 his apparatus at my disposal, and I may at the same time mention that his brother 

 Professor Ugolino Mosso and Luigi Paoletti afterwards corroborated the results I 

 obtained ('Beport of the Eoman Academy,' 15th October, 1893). 



f Warren Lombard, 'Journal of Physiol.,' vol. 13, p. 1, 1892. 



