176 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



using a group of twelve men, comparing them with a similar group 

 drawn from the same class. In the experimental gi'oup the food intake 

 was reduced, so that there was a loss of 12 per cent, of the body weight. 

 A.lthough the experiment was carried on for over four months, and the 

 basal metabolism was reduced by 18 per cent., the diminution in muscle 

 power, so far as laboratory tests were concerned, was not great. The 

 subjective impression, however, of the subjects was that they felt 

 weaker and less capable. 



The other recorded experiment is that of the condition in Germany 

 during the war years. A general statement of the effects of the blockade 

 is contained in a long document prepared by the GeiTiian Government 

 (dated December 1918). Admittedly the document was prepared for a 

 specific purpose; but, after making all allowances, the record of 

 the far-reaching effects of chronic underfeeding is valuable. It may 

 be remarked that many of the statements receive corroboration in the 

 report drawn up by Professor Starling on the food conditions in 

 Germany. Apart from the increased death rate, the increased liability 

 to disease, and the slow recovery from the attacks of disease, the docu- 

 ment definitely states that the working capacity of the people was 

 reduced by at least one-third. The following sentence gives probably 

 an accurate picture of acute undernutrition, associated, it is true, with 

 much emotional strain : ' Everywhere in Germany it may now be 

 observed how, in the four years' struggle for daily bread, the people 

 have lost all their vigour and capacity for work ; how all spirit of enter- 

 prise is gone.' 



Here, then, we have the actual record of an experiment on a 

 gigantic scale. Personally I believe that these results are much more 

 likely to be the ordinary sequence of underfeeding than the laboratory 

 results of Benedict. I do not doubt for a moment his records, they 

 are beyond reproach ; "but I feel that many of the excellent results which 

 were obtained when the test subjects competed with subjects on ordinary 

 food were in part due to the quite natural desire of the men to demon- 

 strate tO' their friends and the onlookers that they were fit. In other 

 words, there was a strong psychic element which vitiated the test as a 

 real test of efficiency. 



Evidence, much debated it is true, would indicate that it is not only 

 the quantity but the quality of the food consumed which plays a part 

 in the fitness of the individual to perform hard muscular work. All 

 modern work would seem to point to the conclusion that if the caloric 

 value of the food supplied is adequate the actual demand for protein 

 is very small. It is very difficult, however, to believe that the far- 

 reaching common belief in the efficacy of a high meat intake, despite 

 the scientific evidence to the contrary, is without some foundation. 

 It is possible that the value of meat (flesh) depends not merely on the 

 high biological value of its protein, but also on the fact that it can act 

 as a stimulant of cellular activity ; that, in other words, it is desired 

 for its stimulating effect, for giving, in that expressive transatlantic 

 word, ' pep.' 



Another factor which plays an enormous role in the general efficiency 

 is the response of the organism to the multiple psychic imponderabilia 



