The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-05-31

a hard problem in mathematics or fl
nance, or in understanding the position
of presidential candidate 1t nav be
possible to measure the material eff
feet of anger-perhaps of all human
emotion, not excluding that of love It
will be possible to indicate the energy
consumed in lifting your arm to the
height of your head, and even the diff
ference of the work of your body in
waking and sleeping hours.
THE MECHANICAL EFFICIENCY
OF THE HUMAN BODY.
But this is anticipating. Primarily
the calorimeter is designed to show
that a pound of food burned in the
human body gives out the same amount
of energy as though that food were
taken and burned in a furnace. And
eventually Professor Rosa. hopes to be
able to express in figures, the mechan-
ical efficiency of the human body, Just
as is now done in the case of steam
engine.
What he means is this: In the case
of a pound of coal burned in an en-
CINE. part is converted into cinders,
part is given off as useless heat, and
part is converted into actual energy or
work Now in the case OF the engine,
these parts are expressible IN set
terms. For example, we say that IN
very fine triple-expansior engine 1t IS
possible to convert something like Is
per cent. of the total potential energy
of the coal consumed therein into work.
And what Professor Rosa hopes to find
out lis what percentage the human
body realizes as mechanical work out
of the potential energy of the food
which it takes in and digests.
This is the scientific statement of
the matter. To myself l put it this
wise, that this professor is trying to
find out how much of the nutriment
in a pound of beef is actually made
use of by the human body and con-
verified into the energy that keeps you
warm, and enables you to attend to
business, read your newspaper or ride
your bicycle. The practical or human
interest that lies in all this to the lay
man, who is not interested in the alb
stract principles of science, is that one
of these days we shall know just what
kind of food will enable US to do the
most work for the least money, and,
Incidentally, the class of foods that it
is well to let alone.
Just the manner in which the ex-
perimenters at Wesleyan are trying to
find out is this: They have construct
ed this alright box of copper and
zinc and wood, with all it's varied and
delicate appliances, and into this box
they put a-victim, [ was going to call
him-Subject, [ should say-seal him
up, and then proceed to measure and
weigh everything he does and every
thing he eats. Take the air he
breathes. 1t is drawn from the out
side atmosphere down through a cool
ing apparatus, which reduces it's
temperature to about 20 degrees below
IJ1c y in 9
perfectly dry. Drawn through the box
and breathed by the subject, this air
takes up all the moisture given off
from the skin and lungs. This air is
again drawn through a cooler, which
reduces it to the same temperature as
before, thus extracting the water it
absorbed, which may then be measur-
ed. Do you think this is a small mat
ter? Are you aware, pray, that merely
in breathing you throw out of your
lungs something like two pounds of
water every day?
THE EMOTIONS REGISTERED.
Chemical analysis determines the
amount of carbonic acid gas which the
subject gives off in breathing, and
also the residual moisture not de-
posted in the freeZers and the quanti-
ty of heat given off from the skin is
the scheme to measure things of the
person under investigation This is
done simply by passing a stream of
cold water at known temperature
through series of copper boxes con-
tanned in the chamber and then out
past a second thermometer, which
registers the change of tenn
perature. The air driven in is kept
at the same temperature as that COM