ALIMENTARY ENERGETICS. 145 



of albumen below which the organism would perish. 

 Voit had found 118 grammes of albumen necessary 

 for the average adult man weighing 70 kilos. This 

 figure is certainly too high. The Japanese doctors, 

 Mori, TsuboT, and Murato, have shown that a con- 

 siderable portion of the population of Japan is 

 content with a diet much poorer in nitrogen, and 

 suffers no inconvenience. The Abyssinians, according 

 to Lapicque, ingest, on the average, only 67 

 grammes of albumen per day. A Scandinavian physi- 

 ologist, Siven, experimenting on himself, found that 

 he could reduce the ration of albumen necessary to 

 the maintenance and equilibrium of the organism to 

 the lowest figures which have been yet reached 

 namely, from 35 to 46 grammes a day. These 

 experiments, however, must be confirmed and inter- 

 preted. Besides, it is important to point out that the 

 most advantageous ration of albumen requires to be 

 a good deal above the strictly sufficient quantity. 



It only remains to refer to several other recent 

 researches. The most important of many are those 

 published by M. Chauveau, on the reciprocal trans- 

 formation of the immediate principles in the organism 

 according to the conditions of its functioning and 

 the circumstances of its activity. To deal with 

 these researches with as much detail as they deserve, 

 we must study the physiology of muscular contraction 

 and of movement that is to say, of muscular 

 energetics. 



