^20 



TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION I. 



Average per individual 13-5 gr. N excreted per day. 



Allowing for a loss of 10 per cent. N in faeces, this is equivalent to 93 grams of 

 protein per day. 



There are several points of interest which are demonstrated by these tables. 

 The first of these is the constancy of the ratio of the uric acid nitrogen to the total 

 nitrogen. In five cases out of seven the deviation from the average of l'5i per 

 cent, is well within the limits of experimental error ; in the other two cases the 

 deviation does not exceed 0-09 per cent. 



Another point of interest is the relatively low total nitrogen excreted. This 

 is a point of considerable importance from the sociological standpoint. The 

 following numbers are taken from Rowntree's ' Poverty : A Study in Town Life,' 

 a study of social conditions in the town of York : — 



Social condition 



Working-class families of total weekly earnings under 26« 

 „ „ „ over 26« 



Servant-keeping classes 

 Workhouses (including York) 

 Prisons. Class B . . . 

 „ Convicts at hard labour 



Atwater's standard 

 Average from above physiological laboratory experiment 



* Calculated per adult man. 



Amount of 

 protein used daily * 

 89 grams 



119 „ 



126 „ 



136 „ 



134 „ 



177 ,. 



125 „ 



93 „ 



Rowntree has adopted Atwater's standard, and has concluded that 27 per 

 cent, of the population of the city of York are living in poverty, partly on the 

 ground that their protein diet falls below the Atwaler standard. Although it 

 cannot be claimed that the numbers obtained by us by urine analyses are strictly 

 comparable to those given in the above table ^ (which refer to bought food), yet 

 the differences are so great, and the actual nitrogen metabolism falls so far below 

 the Atwater standard, that great care must be taken in drawing conclusions as to 

 the sociological conditions from the amount of protein consumed. It is hoped 

 that we shall be able to extend this investigation in other directions. 



4, Some Determinations of Nitrogen Excretion tender Normal 

 Conditions. By E. P. Poulton, B.A. 



The following determinations were carried out, at the suggestion of Professor 

 Gotch,_in the Physiological Laboratory of the Oxford University Museum. The 

 object in view was to estimate about twice a week, over a period of three months, the 

 amount of nitrogen contained in a day's urine, in order to see how far the amount 



' It is also probable that the poorer classes take relatively larger quantities of 

 vegetable protein, in which cases the loss of nitrogen in the fseces is greater than 

 10 per cent., the amount allowed for in our laboratory experiments. 



