eggs—is the greatest evil affecting man’s nutrition. The excess of
proteid not only remains unburned in the bodily furnace, but this
waste matter very often decays in the body, forming a culture bed
for germs which effect the whole system, a condition scientifically
known as autointoxication, or self-poisoning of the body through the
action of the germs of putrefaction, and of other germs, which are
bred in the colon, or large intestine. The researches of Metchnikoff,
Bouchard, Tissier, Combe, and other eminent scientists, have shown that
autointoxication is the source of a great number of the most serious
chronic diseases which afflict mankind.
“We say, then, that the existing dietary standards place in all
cases the minimum of proteid necessary for the average man’s daily
consumption at far too high a figure. It may be safely said that it is
placed twice as high as careful and repeated experiments show to be
really necessary.
“There can be little doubt that the habit of excessive eating and
drinking, combined with the habit of too hasty eating and drinking,
especially of meat, fish and eggs, are probably the most prolific
sources of many bodily disabilities affecting men and women, and are
consequently the greatest deterrents to the attaining by men and women
of a high grade of efficiency in work, of better health, of greater
happiness, and of longer life.
“We believe that it has been demonstrated as a fact that health can be
bettered, endurance increased, and life lengthened, by cutting down
the commonly accepted standards of how much meat, eggs, fish and other
proteid food we should eat and drink by about one-half.”
* * * * *
After Horace Fletcher had attracted the notice of the scientific world
in 1902, Professor Chittenden invited him to become the subject of a
series of experiments at Yale, where the Sheffield Scientific School
possessed an equipment suitable for an elaborate inquiry of this kind
much superior to any to be found in Europe.
FLETCHER’S CLAIMS SUPPORTED
Professor Chittenden first made certain, by experiments which precluded
any chance of error, that Horace Fletcher’s claims were justified so
far as Horace Fletcher himself was concerned. But this, of course,
by no means solved the problem. Mr. Fletcher might simply be a
physiological curiosity—a digestive freak—of whom there are many known
cases. He lived and thrived on an amount of proteid food startlingly
less than was deemed necessary by all existing standards, but this
could not be taken as proof that people in general could do likewise.
Only an exhaustive series of tests on a large number of people of
varying ages and conditions of life could prove this. Professor
Chittenden resolved to make these tests.
At the very outset, however, he faced this difficulty. If Mr.
Fletcher’s was merely a freak case, there would be a grave danger in
putting other men upon his dietary. Mr. Fletcher was flourishing on
a daily consumption of proteid foodstuffs amounting to an average of
only 45 grams, and the fat, sugar and starch consumed by him were
in quantities only sufficient to bring the total food value of the
daily food up to a little more than 1600 “calories,” or units of
fuel energy. The Voit standard—which is the typical one, the one most
commonly accepted, and which is based upon thousands of studies of
what men and women actually eat—demands that the average man shall eat
at least 118 grams of proteid, with a total fuel value of 3000 large
“calories” for the daily ration.
To make clear to the non-scientific reader just what quantity of
foodstuffs is represented by 50 grams of proteid, which is 5 grams
more than that consumed daily by Mr. Fletcher in his tests, and is
approximately the amount consumed daily by other men in the Yale
experiments, it may be said that 50 grams is about equal to 772 grains,
which are equal to about 1¾ ounces. This quantity would be represented
by the proteid contents of 9½ ounces of lean meat, or 7 eggs, or
27 ounces of white bread. Nine and one-half ounces of meat (using
comparisons furnished by Dr. Edward Curtis) is about the weight of a
slice measuring 7 by 3 inches and cut ¼ of an inch thick. Twenty-seven
ounces of bread represent somewhat less than two loaves, the standard
loaf weighing one pound (16 ounces). Of course, few people ever eat 7
eggs, or 2 loaves of bread in a day; but the vast majority of people in
America do eat a great deal more proteid than would be represented by 7
eggs, or 2 loaves of bread or a slice of meat of the size named, since
proteid is found in a great number of other foodstuffs besides those
mentioned.
CHITTENDEN’S EXPERIMENTS ON HIMSELF
Professor Chittenden realized that to ask a number of men to subsist on
a ration similar to that which nourished Mr. Fletcher might possibly
result in seriously weakening their constitutions. This is the problem
which has often confronted other scientists, and Professor Chittenden
solved it in a way characteristic of the true scientist—the devoted
warrior in humanity’s cause who wages warfare against the forces of
evil. He began his experiments upon himself.
The result rewarded his self-sacrificing spirit; for within a few
months a severe case of muscular rheumatism (which had plagued him for
years, refusing to yield to treatment) disappeared; and with it went
a recurrent bilious headache. And it may be stated that these have
never returned. Professor Chittenden has adopted as a habit of life the
dietary which he began as an experiment five years ago. At that time he
was a hearty eater of three meals a day, meals rich in meat and other
proteid foodstuffs.
THE OTHER CHITTENDEN TESTS
Professor Chittenden then began experiments with a group of university
professors and instructors, with a group of thirteen enlisted men
of the army, and a group of eight college athletes in training. All
three of these groups of men were subjected to careful laboratory
observations for continuous periods of many months, during which
the proteid ration was reduced from one-half to one-third what had
been customary. The professors and athletes followed their customary
vocations during the period of observations, while to the ordinary
drills of the soldiers were added severe gymnasium work under the
supervision of Dr. Anderson.
Results were as follows: The subjects usually lost some weight,
especially such as were fat. But it was found that having got down to a
new standard, they held this steadily. They all maintained muscular and
nervous vigor. Careful tests determined that the soldiers and athletes
positively gained in muscular strength. All kept in good health; and
many got rid of illnesses with which they had been suffering in the
beginning. Appetite was thoroughly satisfied; and quite a number of
the subjects permanently adopted the new method of living. Nine of
the soldiers went in a body to a new station, and from thence they
afterwards wrote, through one of their number, to Professor Chittenden,
saying: “The men are in first-class condition as regards their physical
condition, and all of them feeling well. We eat little meat now as a
rule and would willingly go on another test.”
At the beginning of the experiments these soldiers were subsisting on
a daily ration which allows one and one-quarter pounds of meat per day
apiece; and toward the end of the experiments they were subsisting and
increasing their strength on a daily ration of meat equivalent to about
one small chop or less!
These experiments constituted the first series made by Professor
Chittenden. He later carried through a series with dogs: prior
experiments having supported the view that the dog, a typical high
proteid-consuming animal, declined or died when forced to subsist
on quantities of proteid less than the amount ordinarily consumed.
Professor Chittenden, however, challenged here the methods, as well as
the results, of previous investigators. In previous experiments with
dogs the animals had been invariably handicapped by being confined
in dark and dismal quarters, too cramped to permit of exercise, and
at times unsanitary in condition. He reversed these conditions—and
reversed the results. His dogs lived and thrived on a diet far less
rich in proteid than former investigators deemed necessary.
PROFESSOR CHITTENDEN’S CONCLUSIONS
Summing up the conclusions reached by him after arduous years of
experiment and study, Professor Chittenden declares that 60 grams of
proteid (about the quantity which a single small chop would supply) are
all that are required by the average man of 150 pounds body weight.
This is one-half the Voit standard, and far below the common practices
of the majority of mankind in Europe and America.
“But there should be no practical use of the terms ‘standard diets’ and
‘normal diets’ by people in general,” says Professor Chittenden. “What
is needed to-day is not so much an acceptance of the view that man
needs so many grams of proteid per kilogram of body weight, as a full
appreciation of the general principle that the requirements of the body
for proteid food are far less than the common customs of mankind, and
that there are both economy and gain in following this principle in
practice.”
HOW TO INCREASE ENDURANCE
The most broadly interesting of these Yale food experiments are those
having to do with the question of endurance. The vast majority of
people are not ambitious to excel as athletes; they find better and
more enjoyable forms of work in life than putting up big dumb-bells,
or breaking records on the athletic field. Of course, everybody
wants to be strong, and to have well-trained and active muscles;
but on the whole, what the majority of people need is physical and
mental stick-to-itiveness—the ability to work without deterioration,
without running down like worn-out machinery. Professional men, day
laborers, students and athletes, all need this invaluable quality of
endurance—this quality that is the true capital in the bank of life
to be at their command day in and day out, with a reserve ready to be
drawn upon whenever an emergency arises. And it is precisely here that
the new art of health bestows its benefits upon those who follow it.
It was to ascertain the relation between diet and endurance in
the light of the new knowledge shed upon the subject by Professor
Chittenden’s experiments, that Professor Irving Fisher inaugurated his
own experiments at Yale University. He conducted two series of tests,
as follows:
First, to ascertain the effect of thorough mastication on endurance,
following the rules laid down by Horace Fletcher, with the help of nine
healthy students.
Second, to ascertain the influence of flesh eating on endurance as
compared with the effect of abstinence from flesh, with a group of
forty-nine persons, splitting the group as follows,—first, athletes
accustomed to a flesh, or high proteid dietary; second, athletes
accustomed to a low proteid, or non-flesh dietary; third, sedentary
persons accustomed to a low proteid, or non-flesh dietary.
[Illustration: PROF. IRVING FISHER, PH.D.,
Professor of Economics at Yale University. His investigations have
had to do largely with the cost of necessary food.]
The flesh-eaters were Yale men, including some of the best known
athletes of the university. The abstainers were nurses and physicians
attached to the Battle Creek Sanitarium.
Professor Fisher’s interest in the subject was that of a political
economist. Meats, as a general rule, are the most expensive part of the
national diet, and it is apparent that if a fleshless, or low proteid,
diet will increase endurance, it will also increase the national
earning capacity, and thus add to the national wealth. When Professor
Fisher began his experiments he encountered a singular fact, which was
that the science of physiology had given very little attention to the
study of endurance. “That strength and endurance are not identical,
is only partly recognized,” he writes. “The strength of the muscle is
measured by the utmost force that it can exert once; its endurance, by
the number of times it can repeat any exertion within its strength.
The repetition of such exertion, if not stopped by the refusal of the
will, is finally stopped by the reduction of the strength of the muscle
till it is unable to perform further. Thus endurance may be expressed
in terms of loss of strength. It is related to fatigue, and it is only
through the study of fatigue and fatigue poisons, made by Mosso and
others, that light has been thrown on the nature of endurance.”
When these tests were held Professor Fisher had not then invented the
machine for registering endurance which is now in use in the Yale
gymnasium; therefore, three simple tests were employed: first, holding
the arms horizontal as long as possible; second, deep knee bending;
third, leg raising with the subject lying on his back.
VICTORY FOR THE LOW PROTEID DIET
The results of the competitive tests were all in favor of the
flesh-abstaining athletes. In the first test, which was holding the
arms horizontal, only two of the fifteen flesh-eaters succeeded in
holding their arms out over a quarter of an hour; whereas twenty-two
of the thirty-two abstainers surpassed that limit. None of the
flesh-eaters reached half an hour, but fifteen of the thirty-two
abstainers exceeded that limit. Of these, nine exceeded one hour, four
exceeded two hours, and one exceeded three hours, the last going
exactly two hundred minutes, or three hours and twenty minutes.
In the leg raising test the record showed little difference. None
of the abstainers reached their absolute limits. The highest record
for the abstainers was one thousand times. A flesh-eater reached one
thousand, three hundred and two, but did so after the one-thousand mark
had already been set for him by an abstainer, and he went into the test
with the expressed intention of defeating his rival. Professor Fisher
states that it was evident from his fatigue at the end of the test that
he could not have repeated the performance on the next day, as did his
flesh-abstaining rival.
In respect to deep-knee bending, Professor Fisher pointed out that
of the nine flesh-eaters who went into this contest, only three went
above three hundred and twenty-five times, while of the abstainers,
seventeen surpassed this figure. Only nine of the flesh-eaters reached
one thousand, as against six of the twenty-two abstainers. None of
the flesh-eaters surpassed two thousand, while two of the abstainers
did. One abstainer, an athlete, S. A. Oberg, did two thousand and four
hundred dips or deep knee bends, almost doubling the highest figure set
by the flesh-eating athlete, which was one thousand, two hundred and
ninety-two. Most of the Yale flesh-eating athletes were so severely
crippled by their efforts in this particular set of movements that
Professor Fisher resolved not to employ them again, and went to work
on his device for mechanically registering endurance. One of the Yale
athletes, who in the deep-knee bending test had reached five hundred
times, fainted. Several had to be carried down the gymnasium stairs,
and others were made so stiff and sore that for days they could
not walk up and down stairs with comfort, while in the case of the
abstainers from flesh foods there were comparatively little painful
after-effects. Two of the abstainers, one a Yale athlete, were almost
free from physical after-effects. The Yale man ran on the track of
the gymnasium after his performance, and took a long walk afterward;
while the other athlete, Oberg, a Sanitarium nurse, who made the
highest record of all, two thousand four hundred times, continued his
duties and found little annoyance from stiffness or soreness. (Another
flesh-abstaining athlete, John E. Granger, of Battle Creek Sanitarium,
has since made a new record of five thousand and two dips in two hours
and nineteen minutes.)
Professor Fisher tried many means to stimulate the flesh-eating
athletes to do their very best. He called upon their “Yale spirit” to
rally to their aid, and he states that the advantage of rivalry as
between the flesh-eaters and the abstainers was decidedly upon the
side of the flesh-eaters, for their tests, with two exceptions, came
after all the records of the abstainers had been completed. The Yale
men felt that their tests would go on record as tests of Yale athletes,
and Professor Fisher states that the “Yale spirit” which aided them
appeared to be as great a stimulus as any “vegetarian” spirit could
possibly be.
THE RESULT OF THE MASTICATION TEST
As to the experiment with the nine healthy students, Professor Fisher
says:
“The results of the experiment demonstrated so great an increase
of endurance as to seem at first incredible. It certainly was a
surprise, both to the men and to me. But statistics which I have been
collecting during the last two years have prepared me to find great
differences and changes in endurance. The special result of the present
experiment is to show that diet is an important factor in producing
such alterations. The fact that endurance, even among persons free
from disease, is one of the most variable of human faculties—far
more variable than strength, for instance—is evident to any one who
has made even a superficial examination. Some persons are tired by
climbing a flight of stairs, whereas the Swiss guides, throughout the
summer season, day after day spend their entire time in climbing the
Matterhorn and other peaks; some persons are “winded” by running a
block for a street car, whereas a Chinese coolie will run for hours on
end; in mental work, some persons are unable to apply themselves more
than an hour at a time, whereas others, like Humboldt, can work almost
continuously through eighteen hours of the day.
[Illustration: MR. JOHN E. GRANGER BREAKING THE WORLD’S RECORD FOR
DEEP KNEE BENDING.
The spectator at the extreme right is Mr. Alonzo A. Stagg, coach
of the Chicago University football team. Mr. Michael Williams is
between the two.]
“It is, to say the least, remarkable that hitherto so little effort
has been directed toward discovering the factors which explain such
differences in endurance. That exercise is one of the most and perhaps
the most important factor has long been recognized. A correspondent
assures me that by means of moderate _regular_ exercise he succeeded
in increasing his endurance between 100 and 200% in three weeks as
measured by leg-raising and “dipping.” The influence of diet has always
been regarded as small or negligible, and the opinion has almost
been universal, until recently, that a diet rich in proteid promotes
endurance. Even among those whose researches have led them to the
opposite conclusion, there is very little conception of the extent to
which diet is correlated with endurance. Such a person, a medical
friend of the writer, stated, when the present experiment was planned,
that he did not think the dietetic factor strong enough compared with
others to produce any marked effect. We have all heard, of course,
of the enthusiastic reports of vegetarians as to their increased
endurance, but these we have discounted as exaggerations. The result
of the present experiment, however, would seem to indicate that one’s
improvement in endurance is usually not less, but greater, than he
himself is aware of. Probably it is also true that we may lose a large
fraction of our working power before we are distinctly conscious of the
fact.
“While the results of the present experiment lean toward
‘vegetarianism,’ they are only incidentally related to that propaganda.
Meat was by no means excluded; on the contrary, the subjects were urged
to eat it if their appetite distinctly preferred it to other foods.
“The sudden and complete exclusion of meat is not always desirable,
unless more skill and knowledge in food matters are employed than most
persons possess. On the contrary, disaster has repeatedly overtaken
many who have made this attempt. Pawlow has shown that meat is one of
the most, and perhaps the most, ‘peptogenic’ of foods. Whether the
stimulus it gives to the stomach is natural, or in the nature of an
improper goad or whip, certain it is that stomachs which are accustomed
to this daily whip have failed, for a time at least, to act when it was
withdrawn.
“Nor is it necessary that meat should be permanently abjured, even when
it ceases to become a daily necessity. The safer course, at least, is
to indulge the craving whenever one is ‘meat hungry,’ even if, as in
many cases, this be not oftener than once in several months. The rule
of selection employed in the experiment was merely to _give the benefit
of the doubt_ to the non-flesh food; but even a _slight_ preference for
flesh foods was to be followed.
“Under flesh foods are included all meat and ‘stock’ soups. It has
been shown that although these extracts of meat contain a large amount
of nitrogen, it is not in the form of proteid which can be utilized,
but only of waste nitrogen which must be excreted. Apparently the sole
virtue of such soups is that they supply the ‘peptogenic’ stimulus
above referred to.
ANYBODY CAN APPLY THE NEW KNOWLEDGE
“The practical value of the experiment consists in the fact that any
layman can apply it, with or without a knowledge of food values, though
with more advantage if he possess than if he lack such knowledge.
If the dietetic rules of the present experiment are followed, no
self-denial as to foods is required. It is, however, absolutely
necessary that there should be _self-control_ enough to break up the
habit of hurried eating to which modern civilization has brought
us—habituating us, as it were, to eat against time.
“Experience indicates that appetite does not lead to a diet fixed in
amount or constituents, but moves in undulating waves or cycles. The
men who took part in the experiment were encouraged, after any of
the symptoms which seemed to be associated with high proteid (such
as heaviness, sleepiness, stiffness, or soreness after exercise,
or catching cold), to cut down on their proteid and substitute fat
to restrain the gastric juice. This advice was intended to make
application of the theories of Folin that we usually carry a reservoir
of proteid, enough to supply our needs for body-building for a
fortnight. If this reservoir is exhausted, proteid starvation occurs
and the body feeds on itself; if it is filled too far it overflows and
causes the evils of excessive proteid. If this theory is correct, the
art of eating may consist largely in maintaining a golden mean, such
that the proteid reservoir is neither empty nor overflowing much. Many
persons fear to reduce their proteid to the Chittenden minimum for fear
of proteid starvation; but the experience of those who have tried it
would seem to show that this fear is groundless, _provided_ no violence
is done to natural appetite. This may be trusted, so it would appear,
to raise a warning in the form of ‘nitrogen hunger,’ before the danger
point is reached.” In other words, the body will ask in the language
of hunger for proteid food, if you are not eating as much as you
should. Professor Fisher considers that an amount of meat equivalent to
about one small chop will supply all the proteid necessary in the daily
ration, since proteid is also consumed in bread, potatoes and nearly
all other foods.
It might be added that one of the writers has found the remedy for
continual bilious headaches in the rigid exclusion from his diet of
all foods that are rich in proteids, including meat, fish, eggs, milk,
cheese, peas and beans; and maintains weight and working efficiency
upon such amount of proteid as he derives from ordinary breadstuffs.
He has found that the craving for high proteid foods soon disappears
if it is not gratified; and that the quantity of bread, potatoes,
etc., which the average person would eat at dinner and supper supplies
all the nitrogen which his system needs, without leaving any to cause
autointoxication.
IV
HOW DIGESTION IS ACCOMPLISHED
In order not to interrupt the narrative of the Yale experiments,
we have foregone defining certain of the technical terms which it
was necessary to use. It will be well, before going further, to
give a simple description of the manner in which the food we eat is
transformed in the body into tissue building material and energy: a
process the many parts of which are grouped by physiologists under the
name of Metabolism.