Mat 24, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



503 



should be seated by squads aud should be 

 served by their own squad leader. The es- 

 sence of the system is, however, that the 

 squad leader shall have authority over the 

 serving of his men. He either serves the 

 food himself on their plates or at least sees 

 to it that no man takes more food than he 

 can eat, and reports him if he does. 



It should be remembered that these com- 

 pany households are still very young. 

 None of them in the National Army are 

 more than six months old. To take a body 

 of 250 men at random from the civilian 

 population aud train them in six months 

 in the handling of this large quantity of 

 food, so that there should be no undue 

 waste, is indeed a fine accomplishment. 



ilany problems are arising constantly in 

 connection with our work. We were faced 

 at the start with the fact that there is very 

 little exact information on the amount of 

 food required by the army in training or 

 in the field. Such information as exists is 

 obtained from the record of purchases in 

 the Quartermaster Corps, or the corre- 

 sponding departments of other armies, and 

 not from the estimation of food consumed 

 directly. We have, I believe, the first in- 

 stance in the history of warfare, where the 

 actual amount of food consumed is esti- 

 mated directly in the camp and in the field 

 where the troops are operating. This is 

 made possible by our system of feeding 

 men by companies. In this way, it is pos- 

 sible to check up closely also on the relative 

 cost of the di&'erent foods. We find, for 

 example, that where more meat is used the 

 cost of the ration is always higher. Meat, 

 so far as we can learn yet, represents the 

 most expensive article of diet, but meat is 

 also one of the most important articles of 

 food, especially for soldiers in the mus- 

 cling-up period of their training. Experi- 

 ments by Thomas and others show that the 

 nitrogenous waste of the body is most read- 



ily replaced by the nitrogenous constitu- 

 ents of meat. Meat, then, is the most eco- 

 nomical repair material for muscle and 

 other active tissues. Next to meat comes 

 the protein of mdlk and eggs, and below 

 these the proteins of cereals, legumes, beans, 

 peas, etc. It has been proposed by Pro- 

 fessor Lusk to call these most economical 

 proteins, proteins of Class A, meaning that 

 they are most valuable for the purpose of 

 repair and restoration of tissue, and hence 

 also for the growth of tissue, in the whole 

 list of food stuffs. 



We were faced also at the beginning with 

 the question of what should be the optimum 

 amount of protein in the ration. Authori- 

 ties now generally agree that muscular 

 work does not involve a breakdown of mus- 

 cle tissue, rather the contrary. A man who 

 has not been accustomed to work, when he 

 begins actual muscular exercise instead of 

 breaking down muscle will build up muscle 

 and it has been abiindantly proved by nu- 

 merous experiments that the breakdown of 

 nitrogenous material in the body does not 

 increase in muscular work over the amount 

 broken down in complete muscular rest. 

 This is a surprising fact, but it is now quite 

 incontrovertible. Muscular work is done at 

 the expense of potential energy in the form 

 of carbohydrate and fat. There is much 

 evidence also that this energy can be de- 

 rived most economically from carbohy- 

 drate food, especially from sugar, and this 

 doubtless explains the craving of men in 

 muscular training for sweets. These facts 

 would indicate that a relatively small 

 amount of protein or meat in the diet would 

 be sufficient for muscular work. It is quite 

 possible that our soldiers could get along 

 with considerably less than they are using, 

 although our investigations show that they 

 are actually using much less than the gov- 

 ernment allowance. There are some facts, 

 however, which deter us at present from 



