11

     (6) The effects of the large amount of carbohydrate on nutrition and on
           intestinal disorders.

     (7) The effects of the large quantity of salt which is at present given to
           prisoners."

As will be evident a pretty extensive programme was outlined for our guidance in
the investigations. Some of the points we have been barely able to touch on, while
others have been very thoroughly enquired into.

     The estimation of the nutritive value of the dietaries has turned out to involve
a very great deal of work and has taken up at least 90 per cent. of the time that
could be allotted to the enquiry from official duties. This part of the work is by far
the most important and of the greatest interest. So far as India is concerned it is
entirely new—except for observations* on four prisoners in the Presidency Jail,
Calcutta, already referred to; these were on prisoners who were getting fish in their
diet and are not quite comparable with what is found in the case of a strictly vege-
tarian diet. A good deal of work has been done on the Continent and in America
on estimations of the nutritive value of separate food-stuffs and of mixed diets, and
it was thought that by making use of the same methods as employed in those
investigations, this part of the enquiry would be a comparatively simple matter.
Such, however, did not prove to be the case; it was found that new methods of
investigation had to be devised, to meet the difficulties encountered in applying
the old methods to diets composed almost entirely of vegetable matter and
showing an exceeding low co-efficient of absorption.

     In the work hitherto done on the nutritive value of food-stuffs and dietaries
in America and Europe the materials under investigation all show a very high
percentage of absorption for the several proximate principles. Thus Rubner
and Atwater's † figures give—

* Scientific Memoirs, No. 34.
† Food and the Principles of Dietetics. R. Hutchison, M.D.

c 2