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

use to man III indicating the sort of
foods which he ought to eat in order
to get the best results from that Won
lderful machine, his body
The experiments at Wesleyan uni
yersity are carried on in conjunction
with the department of agriculture, at
washington, and the Storrs experiment
station. The work is in charge OF. Pro-
lessor w. 0. Atwater, professor Of
chemistry at Wesleyan and director Of
the Storrs experiment station, and Pro-
1essor Edward B. Rosa, who holds the
chair of Physics at the college. AS
stated by Professor Rosa, the tests
have this purpose:
SIR William Thompson, now Lord
kehvin. Joule and other eminent
physicists won a large part of their
fame In establishing the principle of
the conservation of energy for any ma
cnlne or system OF machines. They
USED lnanimate bodies solely. The
same principle, as applied to an ami
mai, has never yet been tested, and
yet 1t is OF enormous Importance We
look upon the food a man eats as so
much fuel. When digested and oxy-
dlzed IN MS system it gives out energy.
Fart OF this is turned into mechanical
energy, just as the steam engine con-
X.
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 enclosed where all
his heat may be measured, and his
work estimated, we can sum up all the
energy absorbed. and balance it against
that given OUT
To do this latter was mot an easy
matter. 1t required the construction of
one of the most complicated and deli
cate machines Imaginable. 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, it is an instrument for meas
uring heat, and in particular the heat
of the human body and what the hui
man body consumes and gives off.
AS you look at this machine as it
stands in the basement of the Wesley
an laboratory it seems plain and sim
pie enough. If it were not set out in
the middle of the room you might mis-
take it for butchers cold meat box
big one-and. in fact, it is construct
ed oil very much the same principle
The interior box, about as large as an
ordinary convict's cell, is of copper
Surrounding this, and three or four
inches larger all around, is another
box Of zinc, and around this is box
of wood, and then the whole is en-
cased in wooden frame. AS you poke
your head into the little triple-doored
window, which serves as means
of ingress and egress, your first
thought is that the interior would not
be specially comfortable place to lodge
in for week or ten days at 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 out 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 nerve of the hui
man body, with a bewildering number
of tubes and pumps and thermometers
and scales, and with every sort of de-
vice calculated to register the slight
est variation of the temperature of the
caForimeter, of the walls which sur
round it, of the air between the walls,
of the moisture of the atmosphere in
PRODUCED into the box; and not merely
ito register but to regulate all these as
we'll, and to all to so fine a point as
the hundredth of degree Fahrenheit.
This machine is not wholly complete
as yet-ProfesSors Atwater and Rosa
and their assistants are adding new
and yet finer instruments of measure
ment-bult when it is perfected it will
be able to indicate, with great exact
ness, the amount of heat generated,
and perhaps measure variat tons in en-
ergy, due TO varying degrees of inten-
sity Of human thought BY means of
this machine it may yet be possible
to throw upon a graduated scale an in
dication of the difference of effort in
reading modern novel, in working out