The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-04-29
SENSATION OF SESSION
OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMF OF
 SCIENCES.

Report by Professor Chittenden of Yale
 on Results of Experiments Upon the
 Effects of Reduction of Amount of
 FOod-Evokes an Interesting Discuss
 sion-The Soldiers Dieting Experi-
 ment in This City.
 The sensation Of the session just closed of the National Academy of Sciences at Washington, D. C., was a report by Professor Chittenden of Yale on the results of his experiments upon the effects of reducing the amount of food, especially proteids, or nitrogen .ous food, to less than half of what men ordinarily take. The New York Even ing Posts special letter of last night says: He began by rehearsing all the various dietary standards now ordina- |rily adopted. of which the best known lis that of Voight, who prescribes 118 gremnles of proteids daily. Some go somewhat below this figure, others rise far above it. A Swedish standard calls for 1S9 grammes of proteids in daily food having a heat of combustion of 4,728 large calories. Atwater's Ameri- can rule is 125 gramrnes of proteids with 2.500 calories for a man perform ling severe labor. But Horace Fletcher has subsisted for many years upon half the Droteids of Voigt's standard, with half the fuel value, and has remained all the time in most admirable condi- ltion. Now it seemed to Professor Chit 1 tenden that the various dietary stand ards merely show what men are. in the habit of eating. and do not at all prove that they might not enjoy greater vig- or if they ate less. In order to test the question, he experimented for six months upon twenty-seven men, of whom six were professors and instruc- 1 tors in Yale, thirteen were soldiers un- der military discipline, and eight were athletic students of Yale Nothing was absolutely prescribed; there was no l weighing out of food except for the soldiers: but the men were desired in the course Of a fortnight gradually to reduce the amount eaten. especially in the morning, so as to bring it down to about half of what it had been. It was, as Professor Chittendent expressed 1 it, not prohibition, but temperance.
 He began with himself in Novem- Der. 1902, when he was a small man eating about voigt's standard In d few weeks. he reduced the amount by one-halt and after nine months his body weight had begun to be station- iary. He then found that during six months his kidneys carried away 5.S2 grammes of nitrogen a day, in place of (the l6 grammes that they would have lexcreted under Voigt's standard. qt will be understood that nitrogen so 1carried away is precisely the nitrogen that has been absorbed, the metabolic nitrogen, and is therefore the most irn- lportant fact) His health and efficien- Icy seemed to be improved. Similar re- lsults were detailed for the other men of lthe first group. The thirteen soldiers were at first casting off on the average He grannnes of metabolic nitrogen. Af- ter reducing their food in the course of a month, during the next five months
 the amount of IS grammes was reduced Ito an average of 7.S0 grammes. At the lend of that time they had greatly gain led in strength and courage without any complaints of insufficient food lThere was no change in their reaction time nor in the blood, unless there had lbeen a slight increase in the number lof red corpuscles. The fullest possible ldata for each man were given in detail lin the report. All the men of the thir6 lgroup were enthusiastic as to the good leffect Of the reduced ration.
 Professor Chittenden entitled his lpaper a preliminary report and con. fined himself strictly to the facts ob. served and to the scientific conclusions
 from them, without indulging in any lopinions as to what might be the ulti.
 mate consequences of the meagre diet lBut the facts spoke for themselves, ant
 undoubtedly produced a great effec
 upon the minds of all his non-medica
 auditors. Dr. Bowditch thought tha
 they showed that the optimum of die Twas nearer the minimum of nitrogen equilibrium than the maximum. H.
 thought the digestive organs might un
 der such diet undergo a partial arto .lphy, and he would like to know wheth Ter the temperature of the skin woult
 not be lowered. since otherwise it wa
 difficult to understand how the heat Q } the body could be maintained when tn , fuel value of the food was so much re duced. Two other medical members 0 } lthe academy indulged their profession i, l. al nronansitv to anl1nciate oninions il the customary highly impressive medi , cal tone. one of them drawing a lessol 1