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diet was absorbed or only 8.76 grms. nitrogen per man daily. This would
appear to support the view that prisoners who are given a free choice as regards
the quantity of rice they may eat—

        (1) are able to consume much larger quantities of country rice than of
              Burma rice, and

        (2) that the protein of country rice is more easily absorbed than that of
             Burma rice, when given in quantities of from 12 to 16 ozs. per man
             daily to those who are accustomed to it and not to Burma rice.

We think that there is no doubt that both these conclusions are probably
correct. Among Bengalis on their 26 ozs. of dry rice per day the only place
where the full diet was eaten was at Puri, and the rice in use was grown locally
—this contrasts very markedly with what was found in the Presidency Jail,
Calcutta, where we gave up all hope of obtaining a constant consumption, even
for one week, of the full diet, the rice in use there being Burma rice.

       Besides the actual experimental evidence that the protein of country rice is
more easily made use of and assimilated by prisoners in Bengal jails, there would
appear to be an interesting explanation, in the light of Pawlow's work on the diges-
tive glands, that such a result is only to be expected. The prisoners do not care
for Burma rice nearly so much as for the local product and freely state that it is
heating, filling and hard to digest, causing heart-burn and a feeling of heaviness
in the stomach. It is a type of rice different from what they have been accustomed
to live on, and there is no doubt that mental processes have a decided influence
over absorption from a more or less strange form of diet.

       This influence of the mind on the secretion of the digestive juices has been
admirably worked out by Pawlow, and it very probably explains to some extent the
relative absorbabilities of the protein of Burma and country rice.

       For the sake of clearness we might contrast the results obtained in Buxar
with Burma rice and in Bhagalpur with country rice, and see what other factors
should be taken into account.

       In Buxar jail, we had—

           15 Behari prisoners, observed for one week, on a diet for each man composed
            of—

           Nitrogenous metabolism 8.76 grms. of N. per man daily.