212 STORRS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 
A RESPIRATION CALORIMETER AND EXPERIMENTS 
ON THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY 
7 IN THE HUMAN BODY. 
BY (W.°O. ATWATEHR AND E0B.{ROSA; 
—_0+e—_- 
INTRODUCTION. PURPOSE OF THE INQUIRY. 
In previous Reports of the Station reference has been made to 
the development of an apparatus for measuring the income and 
outgo of the animal body.* An article entitled ‘‘ Investigations 
on Metabolism in the Human Organism’’ in the Report of the 
Station for 1896 gave a preliminary account of the experiments 
made in this direction. The apparatus has been designated asa 
respiration calorimeter. Its purpose is to study, among other 
things, the application of the laws of the conservation of 
matter and the conservation of energy in the animal organism. 
Viewed from the more practical standpoint the object is to get 
more accurate information than we now have regarding the 
fundamental laws of animal nutrition, uses of food in the 
body, the nutritive values of food materials and the ways of 
fitting our food to the demands of health, work and purse. 
The experiments described in the Report for 1896 had to do 
with the income and outgo of the body, as expressed in terms 

*In the year 1892 the first steps were taken at Wesleyan University toward the 
development of a respiration calorimeter. The investigation was conducted under 
the auspices of the University and in connection with the Storrs Experiment Sta- 
tion. The progress of the work led to constantly increasing hopes of success, but 
at the same time showed more and more clearly the need of considerable amounts of 
labor and money in order to insure results at all commensurate with the importance 
of the inquiry. In 1894 provision was made by Act of Congress for an inquiry into 
the food and nutrition of the people of the United States. The responsibility for the 
inquiry was vested in the Secretary of Agriculture by whom it was assigned to the 
Director of the Office of Experiment Stations and the immediate charge was placed 
in the hands of the Director of the Storrs Experiment Station as Special Agent of the 
Department of Agriculture. It was considered that a research not only germane but 
fundamental to such an inquiry might be appropriately aided from this fund, though 
the amount which could be utilized for the purpose was small. In 1895 the Legislature 
of Connecticut provided a special annual appropriation to be expended by the Storrs 
Experiment Station for food inquiries. The resources of the Station for this purpose 
were thus increased, and with the supplement from the general Government and 
with the aid from Wesleyan University and other sources it has been possible to 
greatly enlarge the scope of this especial investigation and prosecute the work ina 
manner which would otherwise have been entirely out of the question. The inquiry 
naturally divided itself into two parts. These have to do respectively with the metab- 
olism of matter, and with the metabolism and conservation of energy. That part of the 
inquiry which has to do specifically with the establishment of the law of the conser- 
vation of energy was, in the first instance, undertaken jointly by Messrs. Atwater 
and Rosa and the present article is accordingly published under their authorship. It 
is expected that in later articles describing other experiments and phases of the work 
other gentlemen, who have shared in the investigations, will likewise share in the 
published authorship. 




