UNCONTROLLED FOOD SUPPLY

If an expert dietitian and physiologist should take up for study a report on metabolism made by a scientific authority, he would expect first of all that the composition and weight of food ingested should be accurately stated. Without knowing the amount of intake, data respecting the outgo have no significance. In Bulletin 84, Part 4, Benzoate of Soda, containing the experimental data of the Bureau of Chemistry, it will be noticed that careful analytical examinations were made of all the foods ingested and the quantities of each kind of food for each subject is accurately stated. The data in this investigation therefore obtained by the examination and analyses of the feces and urine have a direct significance. In the experiments on the same subject conducted by the Referee Board no attempt was made to have complete analyseg of the foods administered nor the quantities thereof eaten. It was all left to the experimentees themselves. This is forcibly brought out by the statement of Dr. Chittenden on page 17 of Report No. 88 of the Referee Board. He says:

First, the subjects were not restricted to a limited dietary, but on the contrary were allowed reasonable freedom of choice, both as to character and quantity of the daily food. 1n other words, there was no interference with the normal desires of the individual but each subject was allowed full latitude in the exercise of his personal likes and dislikes. To be sure each day a definite menu was arranged for all three meals, but this was sufficiently generous in character to admit of choice; further' after a short time sufficient knowledge was acquired of the special tastes of the subjects, so thdt a daily dietary could easily be provided quite satisfactory to all. By this method of procedure there was no violation of that physiological good sense so essential in experiments of this character.

In the experiments of the Bureau of Chemistry no such latitude was permitted. In the fore period in each case sufficient quantities of the diet prescribed, which was a thoroughly wholesome and well-balanced one, were used to establish an even daily weight of each one. This quantity was given to the subject each day, during the experimental administration of the drug. If during the administration of the benzoic acid the subject would not feel like eating his whole meal, the amount he did not eat was weighed and deducted. This failure of appetite, if no other cause could be found for it, was an indication of the effects produced by the administered preservative. I suppose this method of procedure would be designated by members of the Referee Board as "physiological" nonsense.

The records printed in Report No. 88 indicate the wildest riot in diet ever recorded in a physiological investigation. Enormous differences in the amount of food consumed are recorded in that report. In the evidence before the court in the Indiana case, page 33, this matter was brought to the attention of Dr. Remsen in the following question:

Now, Doctor, in order to conduct an examination of that. kind, an investigation that was of any very great value, oughtn't every article of food that was given to the subject to be analyzed, some part of it, so as to know what it contained?

A. I suppose there are other ways of getting at that besides analyzing it. You can often form generally an opinion of the character of the food you are giving or examining without analyzing.

Q. Are there not variations, for instance in breads?

A. There are variations, undoubtedly.

Q. And they are variations of wide extent, are they not, doctor?

A. Well, wide--depends on the meaning of the word wide. That is a technical question that I should want to refer to the experts of this Board.

Q. You would not be prepared to say what would be a normal range in the quantity of nitrogen that would be found?

A. Not I, no. I could get the information very readily. One moment--my impression is that there were analyses of some foods made--very many.

Some time in the remote future when all personal matters have passed away and an expert chemist and physiologist calmly reviews the data obtained by the Bureau of Chemistry and the data obtained by the Referee Board on the same subject, they will show a comparison of values of the two investigations which I am quite content to leave to the judgment of the unbiased future.

As has been clearly illustrated, the Remsen Board was appointed to protect manufacturing interests. The Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry under his oath was trying to protect the neglected American consumer. One would have thought that in selecting five eminent scientific men that at least some one of them might have revolted from the purpose to which he was assigned. The quotation from Claude Bernard discloses most emphatically the proper psychological attitude of the true investigator when he undertakes his task.