140 STORRS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 
This last statement applies especially to professional and 
business men and to women. It is a common belief of physi- 
ologists and physicians that many of us do great injury to our 
health by the unwitting use of one-sided and excessive diet. 
Although the data needed for exact measurement of this evil 
are lacking, the indications that it exists are certainly very 
strong. 
THE DEMAND FOR PROTEIN. 
A large number of more or less exact investigations have 
lately accumulated which show statistically what has long been 
known from more general observation, namely, that many. 
people live in health and comfort, and some do considerable 
amounts of work, with food supplying less energy. and much 
less protein than current standards call for. ‘The question is. 
often and pertinently asked: Are not these standards too lib- 
eral? Does not following them result in damage to health and 
loss to purse? With our present lack of detailed information 
it would seem that an affirmative answer would be safer for 
people whose work is with their brains than for those who 
work with their hands. Personally I should not feel free to 
give this answer for either class without stronger warrant from 
actual experience than is now in sight. 
Undoubtedly some people can get on well with only half or 
even less than half of the protein the standards call for. A 
considerable number of well attested cases of this sort have 
been found during the past few years, several of them, indeed, 
in the nutrition investigations under my charge. In some ~ 
cases men with more or less muscular activity have maintained 
nitrogen equilibrium for a number of days of actual tests with 
a diet supplying not far from 7 grams of nitrogen or 44 grams. 
of protein per day, and in some instances this diet apparently 
represented their usual food consumption: But the tests were 
not long enough to show what were the amounts of nutrients 
in their food month after month or year after year, nor was 
there anything in the observations to indicate the permanent 
effect of such a diet upon health, strength and bodily welfare. 
There are likewise numerous instances where people have 
much less energy in their daily food than the standards pro- 
vide; but here again the data are insufficient to show just what 



