504 PHYSIOLOGY. 



certainly not high, is more than the conventional adult diet provides 

 and from five to ten times as much as the minimum. It is indeed a 

 well-known fact that the rate of urea excretion in infancy is higher in 

 proportion to the body-weight than at any other period of life. If 

 ten times the minimum rate is the normal diet provided by nature, then 

 even after making full allowance for the . necessities of growth; the 

 minimum can hardly be normal for the adult nor the amount 

 ordinarily taken a very great deviation from the prescriptions of 

 nature." 



Albertoni and Eossi found that when the Italian peasants, with 

 a diet from birth of vegetables only, had proteid added, that there was 

 an increase of haemoglobin, the number of red corpuscles augmented, 

 the strength of the body was greater, and their ability to perform 

 their various duties was greater. Their psychical functions were also 

 better. 



Baron Kakaki showed that a disease called kakke disappeared 

 from the Japanese navy when the proteid in their diet was increased. 

 These men previously had an excess of carbohydrates in proportion to 

 the proteid. Other diseases also were less with the increase of proteid 

 diet. 



Metabolism in Fever. 



There is an increase of proteid destruction during fever. The 

 creatinin excretion is also augmented, but not to the same extent as 

 the total nitrogen excretion. This increase of proteid metabolism is 

 due to the toxines of the bacteria in great part and not to the increase 

 of temperature. Eolly found the amount of glycogen diminished in 

 toxic fever and in fever due to puncture, or what is called neurogenic 

 fever. 



Hirsh, Miiller and Roily hold that in an infectious fever we have 

 two parallel processes: (1) a specific toxic breaking down of proteid 

 by the bacteria, and (2) a central excitation in the sense of a neuro- 

 genic fever. Ott and Scott have made a number of experiments upon 

 glycogen-free rabbits with B.-tetra-hydro-naphthylamin, which pro- 

 duced a fever. This fever is neurogenic, as it does not ensue after a 

 section behind the tuber cinereum. Here the drug must have produced 

 fever through an action on the proteids, x as no glycogen was present. 

 Eolly found in glycogen-free rabbits that puncture of the corpus 

 striatum, a thermogenic center, caused no fever. We think that the 

 puncture was simply too weak a stimulant to the enfeebled thermo- 

 genic center of a rabbit starved and exercised \>y strychnia spasms. 



