CONCLUDING E,EMARKS 53 



ditions of research should not have too great importance attached to it, as the 

 identity of the conditions is only apparent. 



Nevertheless the low nutritive values which are sufficient to maintain life 

 after prolonged under-nutrition . and in some cases of diabetes are of no 

 importance. That in some obese persons an extreme diminution of the 

 calory supply is actually necessary before they begin to lose weight also makes 

 it likely that here a fundamental property of the living cells is changed, so 

 that the degree of their energy of decomposition has been diminished. And 

 the contrary experience that, in some perfectly healthy persons, even with 

 a food very rich in calories, it is impossible to produce an increase in weight, 

 makes us doubt whether in this case the amount of food is really the decisive 

 factor in the interchange of energy. On the contrary, cases of this kind 

 make it more likely that there is an increased energy of the cells and so an 

 actual " luxury consumption." 



In practice these individuals do not always present such conspicuous exter- 

 nal signs of a lively temperament that the increase in metabolism can be ex- 

 plained by an increased activity of the muscles ; and we are the more inciined 

 to search for an individual anomaly of protoplasmatic activity, if such «in 

 assumption can be in consonance with the dominant teaching. 



The dynamic theory, which has been of inestimable value in making us 

 recognize in biology the force of the law of conservation of energy, naturally 

 lays particular stress only iipon the intalce and output of the organism. But 

 this theory does not exclude intermediary metabolism from consideration in 

 the future. The importance of inorganic salts will then appear in its proper 

 light; they are indispensable in the food; nevertheless, because they do not 

 bring tension power (calories) into the organism they have no part assigned 

 to them in the dynamic conception of the processes of metabolism and 

 nutrition. 



Again we must remember that in the animal organism we have not only ten- 

 sion energy consumed, but sources of energy newly formed (ferments). 



Although researches in the realm of the pathology of metabolism will be- 

 come much more complicated, when all these facts are borne in mind the 

 desirable result will be attained that clinical pathology of metabolism will 

 become deeper but less expansive. 



