The development of physiological chemistry in the United States / Russell H. Chittenden.

  • Chittenden, Russell H. (Russell Henry), 1856-1943.
Date:
1930
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The development of physiological chemistry in the United States / Russell H. Chittenden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    69/440 (page 65)
    To find the basal metabolism, without actual calorimetric determination, Benedict and Harris devised certain multiple prediction tables which are more or less gen- erally used, but they do not appear to offer any great improvement over the formulas based on surface area, such as recommended by DuBois. Finally, we may refer to the interesting and sugges- tive studies by Benedict and Carpenter on Food Ingestion and Energy Trans] or motions, noting particularly the ex- periments with mixed diets in which it was found that with excessive amounts of food there was a stimulation of metabolism, amounting “to 40 per cent above the basal value for a number of hours and to 20 per cent for at least 8 hours; indeed there was every reason to be- lieve that the stimulus to the metabolism would have been found to continue considerably longer than the ex- perimental period of 8 hours if the observations had been prolonged. This fact has a special practical significance in its relation to the daily life of human individuals. While it is possible for a human being to live with greatly reduced activity when sound asleep, without food in the stomach, and without extraneous muscular activity, his efficiency as a member of human society in such a state would be negligible. It is therefore only as the cellular activity increases that we find him becoming more and more of service to humanity, and not until he is erect and ready to perform active external muscular work is he in a condition to live on a basal plane that is of practical value.” Another chapter in the study of calorimetry in Amer- ica is bound up with Graham Lusk, professor of physi-