174 
Miscellanea 
But the most interesting point ascertained from the new material is the confirmation of the 
result that the higher the proportion of animal to vegetable calories the greater the weight. In 
Biometrika^ Vol. ix, p. 5.33, we had for 16 boys and 20 girls: 
■Boys : „?V, ^^^^^ ^ = - -23 ± '16, 
Girls: c,./f., = - '12 ± 'IS- 
We now have for 55 boys and 69 girls : 
Boys: „r,„, c,./c, = - '30 + "08, 
Girls : e,,/ c,, = - -24 + -08. 
These results seem to indicate that Miss Lindsay and Professor Paton, who supports her view, 
are in error when they consider a calory the same whether it be from animal or vegetable food. 
On the other hand, our larger nvimbers now indicate that : 
(i) For a constant age the expenditure on vegetable or on animal food has no sensible relation 
to weight. 
(ii) For a constant age the number of calories in vegetable food has no sensible relation to 
weight. 
(iii) For a constant age the munber of calories in animal food has a positive correlation with 
weight for both girls and boys, being definitely significant in the first case ( + "32± "07) and not 
so in the second ( + '08 ± -09). 
(iv) For a constant age the correlations of weight with ratio of expenditure on vegetable and 
animal foods are for both boys and girls quite insignificant as compared witli their probable 
eri-ors. 
1 am extremely obliged to Dr Chalmers for doing his best to supply additional material. As 
far as it goes, it tends to show that calories are of far more importance than expenditures, but 
that caloi'ies from animal food are more closely related to physique than are calories from 
\egetable food*. The new material supports my criticisms that the failure to distinguish 
between animal and vegetable calories stultified the advice given by Miss Lindsay, i.e. to spend 
money on oatmeal rather than on eggs. It also indicates that no safe conclusions with regard 
to dietaries can be drawn until a reasonable anthropometric survey accompanies the record 
of dietaries, and the whole is reduced with adequate statistical knowledge. 
One point I can allow Professor Paton. It was an oversight on my part, when I said that 
I had written to both Miss Lindsay and to himself ; the letters in which Miss Lindsay and he 
stated that to follow up the families now would be impossible were both replies to one and the 
same letter of mine addressed to Miss Lindsay. The additional facts I desired were in their 
opinion unascertainable, and further correspondence did not seem to me likely to be of any 
service in achieving the end I had in view, namely to render of real service to science a piece of 
recording work from which in my opinion then and in my opinion still, very misleading conclu- 
sions had been drawn, and which conclusions in their turn had been exaggerated in the press 
resumes of the paper. I do not think any such work as that done on dietaries by Miss Lindsay 
and Professor Noel Paton will be of real \'alue until (i) these dietaries are accompanied by 
a thorough anthropometric survey of the whole fiimilies of the dieted and (ii) the equality of 
animal and vegetable food calories ceases to be considered as a dogmatic truth. 
* Of course the results show that on such data as are available, the food has relatively little relation 
to the weight, there is no "marked " relationship. 
