6i8 



NA TURE 



[October 20, 1904 



commonly used in the United States. This is done by 

 chemical analyses and hy actual experiments with men. 

 Investigations are also made of the kinds, amounts, and 

 costs of the food consumed by people of different classes 

 and occupations in different parts of the country. The 

 results throw valuable light upon the physiological, hygienic, 

 and economic phases of the subject. At the same time 

 experiments are made on various collateral topics, and thus 

 information of the greatest usefulness is being acquired. 



The more abstract scientific researches have to do with 

 the transformations of matter and energy in the body, and 

 consequently with the fundamental laws of nutrition. The 

 experiments are made with men by use of the respiration 

 calorimeter, an apparatus which serves to measure the 

 changes which take place in the body with different diets 

 and under different conditions, as, for instance, with physical 

 or mental work or of rest. One very interesting result is 

 the demonstration that the law of the conservation of energy 

 obtains in the living body. Such purely scientific research 

 is difficult and costly, but the speaker insisted earnestly 

 upon its fundamental importance. These experiments show 

 very clearly how the demands of the body for energy, for 

 warmth, and work decide the needs for food. Taken in 

 connection with the practical inquiries, they reveal much 

 that was previously unknown regarding the uses sf food 

 and the adaptation of diet to health, purse, and welfare. 



Numerous illustrations were given of the results of these 

 inquiries. The average man on average diet digests and 

 utilises about 96 per cent, of the material and 91 per cent, 

 of the energy of his food, the rest being rejected in the 

 excretory products ; but the proportions thus utilised vary 

 with the person, and still more with the food. The investi- 

 gations bring out these differences in much detail. 



The question of the nutritive values of bread made from 

 ordinary white flour as compared with the whole wheat meal 

 or brown flour, such as is used to make " brown bread," was 

 considered. Chemical analysis shows that the bran which is 

 removed in making the white flour contains considerable 

 quantities of nitrogenous materials, and also of mineral 

 matters, such as phosphates. A natural inference is that 

 when the miller removes the bran he takes out the most 

 valuable part of the flour. But the analysis in the chemical 

 laboratory is not the same as that in the human body. The 

 digestive apparatus of man has not the power to utilise 

 the bran, consequently, when we eat the meal from the 

 whole wheat we digest the part which makes the white 

 flour and reject most of the ingredients of the bran. Cattle 

 and sheep can digest the bran ; the miller is therefore right 

 in selling the bran for fodder for stock, and the white flour 

 bread for man. This last statement perhaps requires a 

 slight qualification. A large number of experiments 

 with healthy men show that the nitrogenous ingredients of 

 the bran escape digestion when made into bread, so that 

 I lb. of white flour furnishes more digestible material than 

 I lb. of the whole wheat meal ; but it may be that the body 

 obtains more phosphates from the whole wheat. This last 

 question is still under investigation. The present prob- 

 ability, however, is that the chief value of the bran is as a 

 stimulant to digestion in some cases where peristaltic action 

 or the secretion of digestive juices is enfeebled. 



While Prof. Atwater could hardly adopt the vegetarian 

 theory of diet, he believed that the idea of the needs of large 

 amounts of meat is often greatly exaggerated. 



The investigations emphasise the great importance of a 

 liberal diet for people engaged in muscular labour. They 

 make it clear that in many cases the food of the poor is 

 inadequate for normal nourishment, and must remain so 

 until they have larger incomes or cheaper food. 



The investigations also bring out clearly the reasons why 

 people with sedentary occupations need less food than those 

 with more physical exercise. Mental labour differs from 

 muscular labour in requiring much less material and 

 energy for its support. In general, people with sedentary 

 occupations have the larger, and those whose labour is 

 manual the smaller, incomes. Thus it comes about that the 

 well-to-do are apt to be over-fed and the poor under-fed. 



The application of these principles to some of the economic 

 questions of the day was emphasised. High value was 

 placed upon the inquiries of Mr. Rowntree regarding the 

 conditions of living of the labouring classes in York. Other 

 investigations in England and Scotland were referred to, 



NO. 1825, VOL. 70] 



and the statements of Mr. Charles Booth, in his monumental 

 work on " Life and Labour in London," regarding the need 

 of such an inquiry in Great Britain were quoted with 

 approval. 



" Half the struggle of life is a struggle for food "; half 

 the wages of the bread-winner are spent on the food for 

 himself and his family. Little regard is paid to the rela- 

 tion between the real nutritive value of food and its cost. 

 The poor man's money is worst spent in the market, the 

 poor man's food is worst cooked and served at home; heie 

 it is emphatically true that " To him that hath, shall be 

 given, and from him that hath not, shall be taken away 

 even that which he hath." 



The importance of proper diet as an aid to temperance 

 reform was emphasised. In countless cases in the United 

 States, and he presumed the same was true in England, 

 the home diet of the labouring classes is not what it should 

 be, and the cooking and the serving of the food are the 

 opposite of attractive. It is not strange that the people 

 take to drink. One place to work against the evil of alcohol 

 is at the table. 



The educational aspect of the subject was also dwelt upon. 

 The Federal and State Governments which support these 

 inquiries, and the institutions and individuals who carry 

 them on, lay great stress upon the distribution of the results 

 among the people at large. Not only are the details printed 

 in scientific memoirs, but the practical outcome is condensed 

 in pamphlets and leaflets which the Government prints 

 literally by the million, and distributes gratuitously. Copies 

 of these publications were shown. Schools, from the lower 

 grades to the universities, are introducing the subject into 

 their curricula, and leading educators are coming to 

 recognise that when such themes are treated in the true 

 scientific spirit as revelations of natural law, and their 

 significance and their connection with life and thought are 

 explained, they are valuable both for mental discipline and 

 for daily use. It is not a lowering, but a broadening, of 

 the ideal of education which thus makes these subjects in 

 the best sense humanistic. 



In closing, Prof. Atwater urged the importance of such 

 inquiries. He showed how they were already being actively 

 pursued in the different countries of the world, in Europe, 

 in Japan, and in the United States, and suggested that the 

 time had come for the development of the science of the 

 comparative nutrition of mankind. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



CAMBRIDGE. — The following appointments are announced : 

 Prof. Marshall Ward, F.R.S., to be a member of the 

 general board of studies ; Dr. W. E. Dixon to be assistant 

 to the Downing professor of medicine ; Mr. P. V. Bevan 

 to be demonstrator, and Mr. C. Chittock to be assistant 

 demonstrator, of experimental physics; Mr. J. J. Lister, 

 F.R.S., to occupy the university table at the Plymouth 

 Marine Biological Laboratory ; Mr. J. W. Clark to be an- 

 additional manager of the Balfour Fund. 



Mr. H. M. Macdonald, F.R.S., has been appointed pro- 

 fessor of mathematics in the University of Aberdeen. 



The death is announced of Mr. Alonzo B. Cornell, who 

 was the founder of Cornell University, and gave special 

 attention to the development of teaching of scientific subjects 

 at the university. 



A COURSE of ten lectures on " The Chemistry of 

 Proteids," by Dr. S. B. Schryver, was commenced on 

 Wednesday, October 19, in the physiological theatre. 

 University College, London, and will be continued on follow- 

 ing Wednesdays at 5 p.m. The lectures are open to all 

 internal students of the university, and also to medical men 

 on presentation of their cards. 



It is reported, says Science, that about 60,000/. is left to 

 public institutions by Mrs. Elizabeth Green Kelly, including 

 20,000/. to the University of Chicago. We learn from the 

 same source that the will of Mrs. Sarah B. Potter, of 

 Boston, contains public bequests aggregating more tham 



