Omaha daily bee., 1896-05-03
HUMAN BODY As AN ENGINE
+Aa-
Marvellous Instrument for Testing It's Me-
chanical Efficiency,
VALUE OF DIFFERtNTlFooDs AS FUEL
Results of the Tests Made by the
National Governments to Deter
mine the Eject of Different
Foods on the Human Body.
(CopvrIght. lsas. hr the Author.l

The reader. if he be Old enough. will re.
call that many years ago the unscientihC
public breakfasted one morning over the
rather startling announcement that no par.
ticle Of energy expended in this or surround.
ing worlds is ever lost. but that all this
work done, all the trains hauled. all the Goa
burned. all the wonders accomplished BIZ
steam, meant simply the transformation Of
energy from one form into another in per.
fectly quantities. The men OF
science who put forth this dogma even went
so far as to show that so small a matter
as the mechanical or chemical effect of the
making Of a cigar could be measured, and a
candle fame might have its infnitesimal
effect upon the most distant shores Of space.
This, in a very rough way, is what after
ward came to be known as the doctrine OF
the conservation Of energy. And because
men eminent in the scientific world said that
this doctrine was true, the rest Of mankind
accepted 1t as a matter of course, although
not really apprehending how much was con-
tanned in 1t. When 1t was said that a pound
Of coal burned in an engine was converted
into sexactly measurable quantities of heat
and refuse, that was well enough. But no
one went so far as to say that a pound of
food taken into the human body was con-
verified into an exactly equivalent quantity
of heat and work. Though a professor of
science is as fond of a paradox as any other
well bred man, this latter seemed going
rather too far.
THE MAN IN THE BOX.
Nevertheless, it is just this fact which a
corps of Investigators at Wesleyan univer-
sity in Middletown, Conn, aided by the ma
tional government, Is attempting to estab-
fish. When, several weeks ago. the newspa-
pers reported that at a Connecticut college
a young man had been sealed up in an air.
tight box for ten days at a time for the pur-
pose of testing the effects Of various foods,
doubtless the reader, as well as the writer,
attached but little Importance to the matter.
1t vas odd and curious to test foods in such
a fashion as this, but there were countless
other odd and curious things in the dis
patches Of the same day. And somehow the
telegraph reports failed to make clear the
very remarkable character Of the expert
ments which were under way.
The experiments upon the man in the air
tight compartment were to demonstrate that
the theory Of the conservation of energy APP
plies to the organic or living world just as
it does to the inorganic or lifeless world. and
that it applies so definitely and precisely
that it will be Of immense practical use to
man in indicating the sort of foods which he
ought to eat in order to get the best results
from that wonderful machine, his body.
The experiments at Wesleyan university are
carried on in conjunction with the Depart
ment of Agriculture at Washington and the
Storrs experiment station. The work Is in
charge of Prof. w. o. Atwater, professor of
chemistry at Wesleyan and director of the
Storrs experiment station, and Prof. Edward
B. Rosa, who holdsI the1chair of physics at
the college. AS stated by Prof. Rosa, the
tests have this purpose:
"Sir William Thompson, now Lord KELVIN,
Joule and other eminent physicists won a
large part Of their fame in establishing the
principle of the conservation of energy for
any machine or system of machines. They
used inanimate bodies solely. The same
principle, as applied to an animal, has never
yet been tested, and yet it is of enormous
Importance. We look upon the food a man
eats as so much fuel. When digested and
o~xydized in his system it gives out energy.
Part OF this is turned into mechanical en-
ergy, just as the steam engine converts
heat energy into work, Part is radlated
away as heat. We analyze the food a man
takes, burn samples in a special calorimeter
to determine the potential energy of the
food and then with our subject inclosed
where all his heat may be measured and his
work estimated we can sum up all the en-
ergy absorbed and balance it against that
given out"
To do this latter was not an easy matter.
1t required the construction of one Of the
most complicated and delicate machines i'm
a~ginable. 1t is known as a respiration
calorimeter. 1t is the only one of its kind
in existence, and is the invention Of Prof.
Rosa. That is to say, 1t is an instrument
for measuring heat, and in particular the
ASN1 u ~ AtiAN SSNJ N"' ''f~N N'S hNiit |
body consumes and gives off.
AS you look at this machine as it stands
in the basement of the Wesleyan laboratory, |
it seems plain and simple enough. If 1t
were not set out in the middle of the room
you might mistake it for a butchers cold
meat box-a big one and. in fact, it is con-
structed on very much the same principle.
The interior box, about as large as an or
binary c%onvict's cell, Is of copper. Surround
ing this, and three or four inches larger all
round, is another box Of zinc, and around
this is a box of wood, and then the whole
is encased in a wooden frame. Az you
poke your head into the little triple-doored
window, which serves as a means of
and egress, your first
thought is that the interior would not be a
specially comfortable place to lodge in for
a week or ten days at a time-that it would
be very much like living in an ice chest; and
second, that you quite failed to see what
good could come cut of such an affair.
But this instrument. simple as it looks, is
fitted with an amazing series of electrical
connections as delicate and sensitive as the
nerveJ Ct the human body; with a bewilder-
ing number of tubes and pumps and Their
and scales, and with every sort OF
device calculated to register the slightest
of the temperature of the .caior-
meter. of the walls which surround it, Of the
air between the walls, of the moisture of
the atmosphere introduced into the box; and
not merely to register, but to regulate all
these as we'll, and to all to so fine a point
as the hundredth of a degree Fahrenheit.
This machine is not wholly complete as
yet-Profs. Atwater and Rosa and their as
.sistants are adding new and yet finer instru-
nents of when it is per-
'ected it will be able to indicate, with great
the amount OF heat generated,
md perhaps measure variations in energy,
iue to varying degrees OF intensity Of human
bought. BY means of this machine 1t may
yet be possible to throw upon a graduated
icale an indication of the difference Of eff
ort in reading a modern novel, in working
nut a hard problemI in mathematics or
iEance, or in understanding the position of
presidential candidate. 1t may be possible
o measure the material effect of anger
perhaps OF all human emotion, not excluding
hat Of love. 1t will be possible to indicate
he energy consumed In lifting your arm
o the height OF your head. and even the
Inference of the wor4f-ef your body in wax
ng and sleeping hours.
MECHANICAL EFFICIENCY.
But this is anticipating. Primarily the
is designed to show that a pound
I food burned in the human body gives out
he same amount of energy as though that
God were taken and burned in a furnace. '
md eventually ProfY Rosa hopes to be able
D express in figures the mechanical n 1ciancv