Roily And Undeutsch, 1911-13

Employing the universal respiration apparatus devised in the Nutrition Laboratory, although in a modified and unnecessarily complicated form, Roily and his associate Undeutsch made several normal experiments with women in connection with some of their work in pathology. In reporting the results of 1 basal experiment and 3 food experiments, Roily1 discusses the respiratory quotient and attempts to explain what he considers to be a very noticeable rise. It is a fundamental error to lay much stress, as Roily has done, upon a single previously determined basal value. Furthermore, contrary to Rolly's opinion, a nuchtern quotient of 0.819 is not high, as experiments with 68 women in the Nutrition Laboratory gave an average respiratory quotient of 0.81. In common with the findings of other experimenters, Roily found that the oxygen consumption was increased by the ingestion of 200 grams of flesh or with protein in other forms.

1Rolly, Deutsch. Arch. f. klin. Med., 1911-12, 105, p. 494.

A far better presentation of this material is given in the dissertation of Undeutsch,1 who concludes that the vegetable protein preparations cause a greater increase in the total metabolism than the animal protein does. The maximum increase in the metabolism was reached in 1 to 2 hours after the ingestion of the protein. The effect of the protein disappeared at the end of 6 hours.

Amar, 1912

Employing a Chauveau apparatus with Tissot spirometers, Amar2 studied the influence of both carbohydrate and protein diets upon metabolism. Two subjects were used. The carbohydrate meal consisted of rice, potato, and bananas, and corresponded to 95.5 grams of carbohydrate. The protein meal consisted of lean meat and eggs; bread and cheese were also added for one of the subjects. The diets corresponded to 80 and 100 grams of protein respectively. In the carbohydrate experiments the oxygen consumption after a meal increased at first, reaching the maximum in 1 hour, then fell off hour by hour. The respiratory quotient increased hour by hour, although it never reached unity. After protein the oxygen consumption immediately increased, this increase reaching its maximum in 2 hours. The carbohydrates caused an average increase in the oxygen consumption of 6 per cent and the protein an average increase of 11 per cent for a period of 3 hours.

Hari And Van Pesthy, 1912

A series of experiments carried out by Hari and von Pesthy,3 with the usual skill of the Budapest laboratories, was made on three subjects with the Zuntz-Geppert apparatus. The primary object was to study the influence of the temperature of the food on the gas exchange. Nuchtern experiments were made first every morning, which were followed by observations after the ingestion of milk. One liter of milk was taken inside of 3 to 4 minutes in one series of 12 experiments at a temperature of 3° to 4° C, and in a second series of 10 experiments at a temperature of 50° to 55° C. The conclusions of the authors bearing on this discussion are that both cold and warm milk increase the oxygen consumption about 13 to 15 per cent for 3 hours after the ingestion of milk. With warm milk this increase ceases shortly after 3 hours, but persists several hours more or less unchanged with cold milk. The authors conclude that the longer effect in the latter case may be due to a slower digestion of cold milk.