
a 
FOOD INVESTIGATIONS. Et 
expenses of the earlier work. Among these have been Mr. 
A. R. Crittenden, Mr. Henry G. Hubbard, Miss Margaret S. 
Hubbard, Mr. I. EK. Palmer, Mr. EK. K. Hubbard, and the late 
Hon. J. W. Alsop, M. D., of Middletown; Mr. George L. 
Roberts, of Boston; and Mr. EK. K. Blackford, Mr. Mark 
Hoyt, and notably Mr. F. K. Thurber, of New York. ‘The 
most generous of these benefactors was Dr. Alsop, a large 
part of whose donations were made in the early period of 
the investigations at Middletown. It will certainly be a satis- 
faction to the large number of the friends of our honored 
and lamented fellow-citizen to know, what has been known 
to only a few of them, that his characteristic generosity made 
possible the beginnings of a scientific investigation which 
has since come to receive both State and National recognition 
and support, and has grown to be the most extensive as well 
as the most thorough inquiry of the sort ever undertaken in 
this country or in Europe. 
FOOD INVESTIGATIONS BY THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF 
AGRICULTURE. 
The relation of the Station to this work, especially through 
its Director, is stated by the Director of the Office of Experi- 
ment Stations in the letter of transmittal of Bulletin No. 21 
of that office,* from which the following is cited: 
‘“ Investigations of the hygienic and pecuniary economy of food are of com- 
paratively recent date. It is scarcely fifty years since the classical researches of 
Liebig began to pave the way for finding practically all we know to-day of the 
ingredients of our food materials, the ways in which they are used in the body, 
and the kinds and combinations which are best adapted to health and purse. 
The first at all extensive series of investigations of materials used as the food of 
man, undertaken in the United States, were studies of the chemistry of fish, 
prosecuted under the auspices of the United States Fist Commission in the 
chemical laboratory of Wesleyan University, by Professor Atwater in the years 
1878-1881. 
‘“A large part of the work thus far done in the United States has been at 
private expense. But, as often happens, the inquiries thus benevolently begun 
have proven so useful that public funds are becoming available for their prose- 
cution. On the recommendation of the Secretary of Agriculture, the sum of 
$10,000 was included in the appropriation for the Department of Agriculture 
for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1895, the purpose of which was to enable 
him to investigate and report upon the food economy of the people of the 

*** Methods and Results of Investigations of the Chemistry and Economy of Food,” 
W. O. Atwater, Department of Agriculture, 1895, pp. 222. 
