416 ISIDOK GREENWALD 



and 1546 calories daily. His weight fell from 167 to 127 pounds. (The 

 chart is taken from Starling.) Other studies (Starling, Loewy and Brahm, 

 Maylander, Mason) indicate that at about this time Neumann's diet was 

 typical of that available to most of the city population. The well-to-do 

 town dwellers and the agricultural population fared much better, the latter 

 reducing their food consumption little, if at all. 



The limitation of diet in the investigations of Benedict and in the 

 experiences of the German people was accompanied by all the stimulation 

 of war and the fervor of patriotic service. This may have helped to con- 

 ceal from the subjects manifestations that might otherwise have been more 

 promptly observed. In his studies of prison diets, Dunlop found that much 

 smaller changes were promptly noticed by the subjects. He found that 

 with a certain group on a diet containing 179 grams protein, 54 grams fat, 

 654 grams carbohydrate and furnishing 3928 calories, there was much 

 waste and such complaints as there were regarded quality and not quantity. 

 The ration was then reduced to one containing 165 grams protein, 5.6 grams 

 fat, 566 grams carbohydrate and furnishing 3517 calories, which was tried 

 for two months. By that time, 82 per cent of the prisoners of average 

 weight (67 kilos) had lost weight. There was little waste but there were 

 many complaints of lack of food. The ration was then increased to one 

 containing 173 grams protein, 57 grams fat and 602 grams carbohydrate, 

 furnishing 3707 calories. Complaints as to quantity ceased but there was 

 no more waste than with 3517 calories. 



There seems to be a certain definite level of nutrition to which the 

 individual is accustomed and from which it does not vary over very consid- 

 erable periods of time. Thus, Zuntz (Zuntz and Loewy (&)) found his 

 basal metabolism the same after fifteen years. Any change in food intake 

 from the amount required to maintain the level, assuming the amount of 

 physical work performed to remain the same, is promptly indicated by a 

 change in body weight which is, however, not continuous nor proportional 

 to the change in the food. 



It is interesting to examine in this connection the figures given in 

 Table IV for two pairs of groups of dietary studies in the United States. 

 The writer has selected from the studies of Atwater and Bryant in New 

 York City in from 1896 to 1897 and from those of Wait in eastern Ten- 

 nessee in firum 1900 to 1904, those in which the weight and age of the chil- 

 dren were given. 2 These were then separated into two groups, one of which 

 included the studies of those families in which one or more children were at 

 least ten per cent below the normal in weight as judged by Griffith's stand- 

 ards and the other in which all, or all but one in the case of large families, 

 were of normal weight. The distribution of protein and calories is approxi- 

 mately the same within each pair. In New York, milk and its products sup- 



2 These are the only publications in which such information is given that are known 

 to me. 



