May II, 1916] 



NATURE 



231 



the mass of scientific and practical knowledge which 

 has accumulated in the course of civilisation." Our 

 lawyers and politicians had failed lamentably from 

 want of scientific and practical knowledge, but they 

 could not be exterminated; they must be "practical- 

 ised," brought to see the virtue and necessity of 

 natural knowledge, and to know how to apply it. 



The second resolution affirmed the necessity of 

 assigning capital importance to science in the exam- 

 inations of tne higher branches of the Civil Service, 

 and of making it an obligatory subject for entrance 

 to Sandhurst. The proposer, Sir Harry Johnston, 

 subjected the present regulations to a scathing criti- 

 cism, and emphasised the unpractical nature of the 

 examination questions, which were not framed with 

 the object of testing the knowledge and ability of 

 candidates in matters which they would need in their 

 careers. Introducing the third resolution. Sir Ray 

 Lankester declared that for seventy years the cry of 

 the reformer had been heard, but with no practical 

 result. The governing classes and the Press were 

 united in supporting the existing conditions, and the 

 only practicable proposal for immediate action was to 

 alter the basis of Civil Service examinations. The 

 great schools could not move because they were 

 dominated by the universities, and the latter were 

 shackled by the Civil Service regulations ; apply the 

 pruning-knife to the last-named, and the body educa- 

 tional would immediately acquire the power of re- 

 generation. 



Other notable speakers were Lord Portsmouth, 

 Profs. Thomson, Poulton, and Dr. Parnell, of Oxford, 

 Dr. Shipley, of Cambridge, the headmaster of Sher- 

 borne School, Colonel Crompton, Sir Hugh Bell, and 

 Mr. A. Dyke-.^cland. The fourth resolution, authoris- 

 ing the committee to bring the proposals to the notice 

 of the Government, was, like the others, passed unani- 

 mously ; and the uppermost thought in our minds as 

 we left this memorable gathering w'as the hope that 

 "the eyes of men might be opened that they may 

 see light." 



NATIONAL FOOD SUPPLY AND 

 NUTRITIONAL VALUEA 



THE statistics of our national food supply, in so 

 far as they have been available, have hitherto 

 comprised no more than bald statements as to the 

 amount available of this or that marketable food- 

 stuff. We have been told how much meat, home- 

 killed or imported, has been upon the market, how- 

 much wheat, potatoes, etc., but no one has as yet 

 taken the trouble to determine the actual nutritional 

 value of the food supply we have to rely upon. With- 

 out such knowledge it is impossible properly to 

 appraise the national position, or detennine whether 

 we have a safe margin upon which to draw when 

 retrenchment is called for. The truth, as Prof. W. H. 

 Thompson points out in the very timely study before 

 us, is that we are in such matters a happy-go-lucky 

 people, and leave the nation's affairs too implicitly in 

 the hands of our legislators and administrators with- 

 out insisting that business or scientific knowledge shall 

 be sufficiently taken into account. So far as it is 

 possible to do so Prof. Thompson has now given us 

 the information required, and the preparation of his 

 paper must have cost him much labour. He tells us 

 how much protein, how much fat and carbohydrate, 

 and how many calories of food energy are available 

 for the nutrition of Great Britain as a whole. His 



1 "The Food Value of Great P.ritain;s Food Supply." By Prof. W. TT. 

 Thompson. Reprinted from the Economic Proceedings of the Royal Dublin 

 .'^o'iety, Dublin. (Dublin : Royal Dublin Society ; London : '".VilHams and 

 Xorgate.) Price 2j. 



NO. 2428, VOL. 97] 



survey of the subject has been made independently, 

 without reference to previous investigations. 



Anyone endeavouring to collect data which will re- 

 present the position with accuracy meets with difficul- 

 ties. Chief among these is that arising from the fact 

 that in the food estimates for Great Britain no figures 

 are given for agricultural produce fed to live stock, 

 or consumed by the population of the farms. Prof. 

 Thompson, in making a correction for this deficiency 

 in the statistics, assumes that the agricultural popu- 

 lation is at least as well supplied with the produce 

 of the farms as is the general population. We doubt 

 whether he is altogether right in this assumption, be- 

 lieving that the agricultural labourer gets on the whole 

 less than his share of the foodstuffs he is instru- 

 mental in producing. Other difficulties have to be 

 overcome in the endeavour to arrive at a final esti- 

 mate, and we cannot at present expect complete accu- 

 racy. In the study under review it is clear that every 

 effort has been made to obtain the best possible in- 

 formation. 



Of the total protein supply of the nation, 33- 7 5 per 

 cent, is furnished by grain foods, of which 74 per cent, 

 is imjxtrted, 10-56 per cent. by vegetables, 

 31-62 per cent, by flesh meat, of which more 

 than half is imported, 1506 per cent. by- 

 dairy products, and about 2-5 per cent, by eggs. 

 The author points out that much more might be made 

 of eggs as a source of protein supply, by increasing 

 the home produce. Of the carbohydrate supply, 54-26 

 per cent, is drawn from cereal food, 24-5 per cent, 

 from sugar, 14-55 I^'' cent, from vegetables, the only 

 other source of any consequence being dairy products (ex- 

 cluding butter), which add 332 per cent. Of the fat 

 available, 47-04 per cent, is derived from meat, 30-18 

 per cent, from dairy products, 13-25 per cent, from 

 lard and margarine, and 5-14 per cent, from cereal 

 foods, the remaining sources being relatively un- 

 important. 



Prof. Thompson's calculations lead to the conclu- 

 sion that taking the nation as a whole only 10 per 

 cent, of the total food energy is supplied in the form 

 of protein, or, as the author puts it, " one-tenth of 

 the driving power of the human engine is derived 

 from protein material." No less than 59 per cent, 

 of the energy is supplied as carbohydrate; fats yield 

 30 per cent. 



It is customary w-hen calculating the food available 

 for individuals from statistics referring to the whole 

 community to reduce the population to " man " value. 

 This is done by reducing the figures for women, and 

 those for children of different ages, by means of 

 certain factors based upon the supposed relative nutri- 

 tional demands. The figures representing the total 

 food values available are then divided by the " re- 

 duced" population, and the result gives the amounts 

 available "per man." So calculated, the quantity 

 available for the daily ration of a man works out at 

 101-7 grs. protein, 587-12 grs. carbohydrate, and 

 136-5 grs. fat; corresponding ta 4129 calories in 

 energy value. Knowing what is actually available, we 

 are now in a position to decide how far we can safely 

 economise in our consumption, and having clear in- 

 formation as to the relation betw-een imports and 

 home-grown foodstuffs, we can measure what would 

 be the effect of any serious interference with the 

 former. 



The above figures, based as they are upon statistics 

 from ports and markets, may prove, however, a little 

 puzzling to those accustomed to study the actual 

 dietaries of English families. The value for protein 

 seems low, and that for the total energy seems high. 

 The figure, 101-7 grs. protein, represents a gross 

 value for foods delivered at the ports or sold off the 



