456 



NATURE 



[February 2, 191 1 



canal carbohydrates are dealt with as efficiently as ever, 

 and the sugar into which they are there converted is 

 absorbed into the body-fluids in normal fashion. There 

 is, however, reason to believe that, once in the body- 

 fluids, this sugar has almost completely lost its normal 

 significance^ Instead of being the most readily available 

 of the fuels that are oxidised, and together form the only 

 source of energy for all the mechanical work performed 

 by the body, and within the constituent parts of the body, 

 this sugar is now an almost useless commodity, and is 

 further a harmful adulterant tending to accumulate within 

 boundaries through which it is swept at none too great 

 a pace by mechanisms primarily adapted for the excretion 

 of a different class of material. 



In addition, too, there is the sugar which is formed 

 within the tissue-cells by chemical change in the proteins 

 that form another of the absorbed . fuels of the body. This 

 further quantity of sugar has the same character and 

 meets with much the same alteration in significance, and 

 so it follows that the proteins absorbed from the diet and 

 the proteins formed, within the body cease on this account 

 to possess their original value to the economy. Nor is this 

 all, since there is some reason to believe that the remaining 

 class of fuel, the fats, is— th's probably as a secondary 

 consequence — not so well dealt with as normally. Incom- 

 plete oxidation of the fats is by some, at least, considered 

 as in part responsible for that rancidity of the blood which 

 finally determines the onset of diabetic coma. 



The picture of trouble due to these manifold disturb- 

 ances in the utilisation of fuel must be limned even still 

 more gloomily if the conclusions of Benedict and Joslin 

 are to meet with acceptance. They find that the diabetic 

 patient is the site of more extensive processes of oxidation 

 than the normal person in similar circumstances. Nothing 

 that thev say prevents us from continuing their statement 

 into the necessary corollary, that the " efficiency " of the 

 internal mechanisms of the diabetic patient is lowered. 

 Within these patients a greater usage of oxygen and waste 

 of heat accompanies such performances of mechanical 

 work, such internal displacements of matter, as coincide 

 with the periods of rest during which these observations 

 were made. The diabetic patient, already handicapped by 

 his incapacity to utilise fuel, is still further handicapped 

 by the necessity for utilising a greater quantity of fuel. 



Now, in the present writer's opinion, there is nothing 

 in their experimental results to support such a conclusion 

 further than the point where the same fact is seen as 

 true for the normal person with the same relation between 

 bodv-surface and body-weight. Benedict and Joslin do 

 indeed themselves discuss the possibility that the. peculiarity 

 which they discover in the diabetic patient is no more 

 than a peculiarity of the emaciated person, but they dis- 

 miss this possibility as incapable of explaining differences 

 of the magnitude they observe. . It is a pity, however, that 

 they have not brought their opinion to the test of a 

 quantitative calculation, since the point is of great import- 

 ance to our. knowledge of the normal person as to our 

 knowledge of the diabetic patient. If it is true that in 

 this respect the diabetic patient is no more and no less 

 than an exaggerated normal person, then physiology is 

 obviously in '^their debt for an extension of physiological 

 Inquiry to limits not readily attainable in the ordinary 

 way. • 



This very definite statement of opinion is, it is held, 

 based soundly upon the fact that their experimental results 

 may be referred to several criteria other than the par- 

 ticular one used, by the authors,, which not only bring 

 the diabetic patient on to the same level of value as the 

 normal person, but also serve to make the results obtained 

 from their normal persons far more congruous than the 

 authors have made them appear. Indeed, their suspicions 

 might well have been excited by the fact that their method 

 of arranging the e?cperimental results (per kilogram of 

 body-weight) leads to greater discrepancies when dealing 

 even with normal persons than are found when the results 

 are left in the form they were actually obtained (per 

 individual person). 



The interested reader of these most valuable experi- 

 mental data, and the authors themselves, will gain rather 

 than lose respect for the exact outcome of prolonged, 

 highly skilful, and enterprising labour when they observe 



NO. 2153, VOL. 85] 



the manner in which the results can be marshalled into 

 line by the adoption of a new artifice. This will be found 

 to be 'the case when the quantities of physical and chemical 

 change observed per unit of time are divided, not by W 

 (the weight) and expressed per kilogram, but by H ^JW 

 (the height multiplied by the cube root of the weight i. 

 Whatever the meaning of this new divisor and form of 

 expression, it is a fact that it places the diabetic patien; 

 upon the self-same level as the normal person so far a^ 

 his dissipation of heat and oxygen requirements are con 

 cerned. A very probable meaning is that the results af 

 thus referred to the extent of the body-surface, and thai 

 per square metre of surface the loss of heat is the sam< 

 Accepting for the time being this probability as a faci . 

 then the surface of the body in the emaciated as in th 

 normal person is equal to 29 H ^/W. Making use <>; 

 this formula, we can express the results of these exper; 

 ments as is found below : — 



Examined in the " Chair Calorimeter. 



,- ,, , . , Heat (kalori'- 

 He t (kalor.e-) dj^^jpated per 

 f issipated per ,^^^ ^^j^^ 



kiloaramand ofsurlace 



per hour p^^ hour. 



Severe cases of diabetes 1-40 4021 



Mild cases 1-21 3»^>3 



All cases i-33 39-7» 



All normal persons 1-21 3990 



J. S. Macdonald. 



THE ICE AGE IN CORSICA.' 



DR LUCERNA has made an elaborate study of the 

 physiography' of the mountains which occupy so 

 large a part of Corsica, and culminate about 2700 m. 

 above sea-level. Brought up, evidently, at the feet of 

 Prof Bruckner, he has no difficulty in recc^msing the 

 ore-glacial valley floors and the successive deepemngs due 

 to the advancing glaciers of the Giinz, Mindel, Riss and 

 Wurm times. The existing moraines, of course, chietty 

 bf^long to the last of these, and he is able to identify, as 

 has been done in the Alps, the Buhl, Gschnitz and Daun 

 stages of retreat. The height of the snow-line appears to 

 have varied with the locality, but was generally rather 

 lower than in the southern parts of the Maritime Alps : » 

 in more than one place it was about 1650 m., which would 

 signify a sea-level temperature nearly 17 F. lower than 

 that of Ajaccio at the present day. In the valleys, 

 terminal moraines occur, these, of course, being at variou-= 

 levels ; for example, in one case at 1350 m., in another 



low as 750 m. J- ^ 4. Ti 



As the deepening of the valleys, according to U.. 

 Lucerna, was a feature hardly less notable than in the 

 Alps— in one vallev it amounted, during the Mindel and 

 Riss episodes only', to as much as 85 m.— the advances 

 of the ice gave rise to great masses of gravel, form- 

 ing terraces in the lower districts, each of \yhich the 

 author assigns to its proper date. Nothing could be more 

 complete. But perhaps some sceptics will suggest that 

 though a cliff terrace on a valley flank indicates, not onlv 

 a deepening, but also some change in the conditions ot 

 erosion, it does not prove a glacier to have been the agent, 

 and that in Corsica, as in the Alps, very much that is 

 set down to the work of ice may quite as well have been 

 pre-glacial. , . ,. ., ^ 



The second part of Dr. Lucerna's memoir discusses the 

 sea-level in Corsica. During the Glacial epoch the island 

 was gradually rising, and a raised beach or terrace corre- 

 sponds with 'each of its episodes. The Gunz terrace, near 

 Aiaccio, is about 70 m. above sea-level, the Mindel nearly 

 40 m., the Riss about 27 m., and the Wurm perhaps 

 n m. Even the Biihl level can be detected still nearer 

 the sea. The coincidefices are curious, but space does not 

 permit an enumeration of the facts from which the con- 

 clusions are drawn. If they do not always convince the 

 reader, they will, at anv rate, prove that Dr. Lucerna s 

 memoir is a most laborious study of Corsican physio- 

 graphy. 



1 Dr." Roman Lurerna: " Die F.i..zeit a"J".V^°'-fi''='.":.d ^f^^e^hahe" der 

 exogenen Naturkrafte seit dem Ende H.r D>luv,alz»it ^ Abhandluneen der 

 k k Geographischen Ge^ellschaft In W,en. .v. Band, 1910, No. 1). fp- 

 vi + i44-i-x;iiplates. (Wien : R. Lechner, 1910). 



