METABOLISM IN CHINA 



By B. E. Rkad and S. Y. Wang 

 Of the Peking Union Medical College, Peking, China 

 There has not been, as far as we know, a full scientific study 

 of metabolism in China. Hence there are no records of the nor- 

 mal chemical constituents of the urine of the Chinese. Careful 

 analysis has shown that it would be erroneous for the clinician 

 to take the normal percentages given in western books as repre- 

 senting the normal for patients in China, and the two very brief 

 lists of results published by Neale(H) and by Cousland(6) are 

 so limited in character that we have felt it important to go into 

 the matter more fully, making an examination of all the ordinary 

 urinary constituents. 



The first study was made upon convalescent surgical patients, 

 who were living on a regular diet, low in protein. The results 

 from diets containing small amounts of protein have been care- 

 fully investigated by various workers in recent years. (2) In 

 seeking to try out and subsequently combat Chittenden's diet- 

 ary standards, McCay,(9) of Bengal, has produced extensive 

 and interesting work on the low protein diet of oriental peoples, 

 showing how such a diet is sufficient to maintain the total protein 

 store of the organism unaltered in amount on a nitrogenous 

 supply that would be much below the amount decomposed during 

 starvation ; but he also adds that it is impossible to arrange a 

 diet as low in protein content as Chittenden's standard that will 

 not eventually prove insufficient and unsuitable. The figures 

 m Table 7, for the Bengali students, show how low the amount 

 of nitrogen was. It should be noted that he made no fair 

 estimate of the endogenous metabolism and, with all his exten- 

 sive food survey, he was unable to say whether or not the diets 

 partaken were correct in character and of sufficient quantity to 

 effect the full endogenous metabolism of a strong, healthy man, 

 for he has no figures for creatinine and relied solely on the 

 amounts of neutral sulphur obtained. 



A similar set of results comes to us from Singapore, where 

 J. Argyll Campbell, (3) in his work on the diet, nutrition, and 

 excretion of the Asiatic, states that the results obtained from 



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