ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 33 



community can obtain. This statement interested me greatly 

 because so accurately in accord with the teachings of modern 

 physiology, which show that sugar is no longer a mere sweetening 

 agent or condiment, but that it is really a food-stuff of high value. 

 This fact people seem to have found out for themselves, because 

 when all sorts of economies have had to be made, sugar has not 

 been given up, apparently because experience has shown that it 

 is no longer a mere luxury. Owing to the insular position of 

 Australia and to the general distribution of the present distress 

 throughout all the Colonies, this continent is peculiarly adapted 

 for observations of this sort, and experimental physiology, working 

 in the laboratory, confirms the apparent experience of the people 

 by showing, that four times as much sugar disappears in the 

 muscle during its activity than does while it is at rest, and 

 Yaughan Harley has just shown, by experiments upon himself, 

 that sugar taken as a food is a muscle-food. The apparatus 

 he employed is the "ergograph" of Professor Mosso of Turin, and 

 Harley performed his experiments in Professor Mosso's laboratory. 

 By this instrument a definite group of muscles can be brought into 

 play, and, as any one group is like all the other muscles of the 

 body so far as the experiments are concerned, what is found to be 

 true for a part, is true for the whole. Thus an accurate record 

 can be obtained of the effect of any given set of conditions on 

 the muscular work of the body generally. In his own case, seven- 

 teen and a-half ounces of sugar taken on a fasting day, increased 

 the work done by 61 - 76%; seven ounces added to a small meal 

 increased the muscle work by 6 - 30% ; with eight and a-half 

 ounces added to a full meal the increase of work was 8 - 16%, 

 and the same amount of sugar increased the total work done in 

 eight hours by 22 — 36%. Finally, he found that sugar, taken as 

 a food about 3-30 in the afternoon, obliterates that daily fall in 

 the muscular power common to us all, and usually happening 

 about 5-30 p.m. These are interesting results, and, taken with 

 the present prices of meat, bread and sugar, important, for 

 assuming that one hundred and thirty-six pounds of bread contain 



C— May 2, 1894. 



