A NORMAL DIET 409 



accustomed to at home, chiefly on rice. After several months, with the ap- 

 proach of cold weather, they tired easily and did very little work. Thev 

 were then rationed and received 100 grams biscuit, 800 grams rice, 300 

 grams meat, 15 grams fat and 10 grams salt, yielding, in all, 3600 calories 

 daily. Their capacity for work promptly increased and, when the meat 

 ration was later diminished, the Annamese bought pork and poultry out of 

 their own funds. 



The following account of a similar instance is copied from Starling(fe) 

 (1919). "Thus Major Ewing relates how on a railway job in Canada, 

 the Italian workmen were found to become inefficient at about 11 o'clock 

 in the morning. These workmen were spending only seven to eight dollars 

 for food at the canteen as against fifteen dollars expended by the Canadian 

 workmen. The chief difference in the diet conditioned by this economy was 

 in the meat. The company then insisted on the Italians spending fifteen 

 dollars a month. With the 'extra money, they bought fat beef and it was 

 then found that their work was entirely satisfactory." It may be objected 

 that the favorable results in both these instances were due to the increased 

 amount of food and not to the increased amount of protein. But, if the 

 total amount of food had originally been insufficient, the men would, in all 

 probability, have been hungry and would have eaten more. 



Starling believes that the food of the Italians was originally too poor 

 in fat and that the men felt the lack of this and responded to the addition 

 of fat in the form of fat beef. But, while it is true that people accustomed 

 to a liberal amount of fat suffer from lack of it, there is little reason to 

 believe that its lack should inconvenience those, who like these Italians, 

 probably never had any considerable amount of fat in their food. 



A similar effect of meat feeding upon the laborers engaged in the con- 

 struction of another railroad is mentioned by Collis and Greenwood (page 

 254). 



Complete data are lacking but it seems to the writer that in all 

 these cases the improvement was due to the increased protein content of the 

 food. The original diets, while selected in accordance with previous habits, 

 were possibly of not so high a protein content as in their native country. 

 A change from unpolished rice to polished rice in the cases of the Anna- 

 mese or from one kind of flour (as such or as bread or macaroni, etc.) to an- 

 other with the Italians would have been quite sufficient to have produced 

 an appreciable change in the protein content of the food. 



It is curious that physiological literature should be so plentiful in 

 arguments for a low protein diet based on the fact that protein is not com- 

 pletely oxidized but leaves a residue to be excreted by the kidneys. Win- 

 there should be so much solicitude for the kidneys rather than for other 

 parts of the apparatus of metabolism is not entirely clear. Whatever may 

 be the case in disease, it is yet to be demonstrated that the healthy kidney 

 is in any way injured by being required to excrete 15, or even 20, rather 



