532 
Miscellanea 
money on animal rather than on vegetable food, " Protein from vegetable sources is from one 
and a half to two times as much as that from animal sources. In one or two cases it is nearly 
three times as great, and in these diets the energy value received is remarkably high for 
the money laid out.... In some of the studies this proportion of animal to vegetable protein 
is reversed.... All these diets show the disadvantages of this large use of the animal food. The 
energy value is low and the cost is high. How are these diets to be improved'! Study XIX. 
(Group G) seems to give the answer. In this family 'porridge was eaten twice a day.' The 
energy procured per penny spent was the second highest recorded, 619 calories, while it is noted 
that the children were strong, healthy and well-grown " (p. 28). And again : 
" A porridge and milk diet contains the food principles in correct proportion. The protein- 
rich animal foods, flesh, fish, eggs, etc., are all too expensive for the labouring classes, and any 
increase in their amount in the diet is impracticable. But cheese and the cheap protein-rich 
vegetable foods, oatmeal, peas, beans, etc., should be more freely used" (p. 29). An exami- 
nation of Study XIX. thus commended shows that 5'07 shillings were spent on animal, 8'75 
shillings on vegetable food, or the expenditures were as 1 to 1:72, while in the population at 
large 698'77 shillings were spent on animal, 487'28 shillings on vegetable food, or the ratio was 
1 to 0 - 72. This abnormal ratio is obtained in the family in question by taking no eggs, hardly 
any butter, and instead of milk, buttermilk, skimmilk and condensed milk; there is further 
no fish ; the increased vegetable expenditure is on meal and potatoes. Now it would appear 
that before a statement is made that this is the right course to recommend, it is highly desirable 
to ascertain whether the money spent on vegetable or animal food is the more highly correlated 
with physical fitness in the individual. This can only be done with Miss Lindsay's material for 
the weights of the 20 girls and the 16 boys. Accordingly for these sparse data the correlations 
between A the expenditure per individual on animal food and V the expenditure per individual 
on vegetable food with weight of child for constant age were determined. These gave : 
Girls Boys 
a r Aw ... -16 flo -07 ±-17, 
a'-vw ... -07 ±-15 -30 ±-15. 
If any stress could be laid on these results, we should have to conclude that money spent 
on animal food would be best in the case of girls, and money spent on vegetable food in the 
case of boys. But an examination of the probable errors shows that no weight whatever can be 
laid on the results. In fact that Miss Lindsay's data are wholly insufficient to answer the 
question of whether money spent on vegetable or animal food is the better. In fact if we 
take the correlation between weight w and F pence per individual spent on food we find : 
Girls Boys 
a r Fw ... -15± -15 -22±-16, 
both of which are low correlations and neither definitely significant having regard to their 
probable error. 
Next the relation of weight in the children to the number of calories in animal food (C A ), 
the number of calories in vegetable food (C r ) and to the total number of calories in both (Cjp) 
was investigated. 
The following values were found : 
Girls Boys 
a r CA ,o - -16±"15 -51 ±-12, 
a r CvW ... -25 ±-14 -30 ±"15, 
a r Cirl „ ... -20±-14 -41 ±-14. 
If these results could be trusted at all, we should have to assert : (i) that the number of 
calories in the food is twice as influential in the case of the boy as in that of the girl, and 
