166 m'cay. 



among the ordinary working population of Bengal and, in combination 

 with diabetes, very much more so, among the higher classes than among 

 Europeans in Europe or India. This is all the more remarkable in a 

 country where scarlet fever is unknown and where the consumption of 

 alcohol by the people is almost negligible. 



The general conclusion to be drawn from the investigations on the 

 metabolism of the Bengali is that his physical development ° is only 

 such as could be expected from the miserable level of nitrogenous inter- 

 changes to which he attains. 



Prom the results of work carried out on the Behari and other tribes 

 of the plains of Bengal and United Provinces we obtained undoubted 

 evidence of superiority in physique and muscular development and, 

 what is also very noteworthy, a distinctly greater degree of vivacity, 

 briskness, and sprightliness of manner. The body weight is also on a 

 higher scale, being on the average 5 to 7.5 kilos greater than is the case 

 with the Bengali. The ordinary working population of Bengal is char- 

 acterized by a want of vigor, a slackness, tonelessness, general slowness 

 of reaction, and other physiological attributes of torpor difficult to de- 

 scribe, detect, and measure. Self-absorption and want of interest in the 

 incidents of everyday life, little power of attention, observation, or 

 concentration of thought are some of the attributes of all but the better 

 classes and of the better fed among the Bengalis. The Behari and the 

 inhabitants of United Provinces do not show these characteristics to 

 anything like the same extent. What kind of dietary do these people 

 live on? The Behari lives on a mixed diet of wheat, maize, rice, and 

 dal; the inhabitants of Agra and Oude live largely on wheat, different 

 millets, barley, maize, and dal. Without going into details of the dif- 

 ferent foodstuffs it may be accepted that the ordinary workingman has 

 a diet from which he can absorb at least 9 grams of nitrogen per day. 

 Rice as a rule forms no part of the dietary. This would give a metab- 

 olism for the different races included above of from 0.15 to 0.18 gram 

 of nitrogen per man daily, a quantity that Chittenden would consider 

 excessive, and it is fully 20 to 50 per cent superior in its most important 

 element, nitrogen, to the dietaries of Lower Bengal. As we have 

 already stated, the physical fitness and development of these races are 

 much superior to the same characters obtaining in Bengal, and, as far 

 as the evidence goes, the latter would appear to obey the biologic law, 

 namely, their protoplasmic development is a function of the absorbable 

 protein of the diet. 



Now the question arises, Are there any other factors except differences 

 in diet that will satisfactorily account for this higher standard of physical 

 development and general well-being? 



The actual amount of protoplasmic tissues as distinguished from fatty tissue. 



