Chittenden conceived the idea that a low protein dietary, when it is derived from a suitable variety of wholesome foods, will best meet the nutritive requirements of the body. He emphasized the logic of relieving the organs of the task of degrading daily more protein than is necessary for the repair of tissue waste. He also emphasized the fact that the body does not tend to store protein which is ingested in excess of the daily need, and that an excessive protein ingestion promotes putrefactive decomposition in the intestine, and results in the absorption of products which are physiological abominations. The logical deduction from this reasoning was that the protein intake should all diets contained 9 per cent of protein. two-thirds of the protein was derived from the first named, and one-third from the last named food-stuff, except lots 2346, 2344 and 2345 in Which Each Grain Furnished Half The Total Protein.

Table VIII. Composition Of Rations Described In Table VII

*Half skimmed milk powder. Merrill-Soule Company's "Klim."

Table IX. Supplementary Relations Between Proteins From Different Sources. (Vegetable Proteins Only.)

Cereal grains enhance each other's proteins better in all cases than do combinations of proteins of two legume seeds. Neither of the above are equal in the quality of their proteins to certain combinations of a legume seed with a cereal in which the cereal furnishes two-thirds and the legume seed one-third of the total protein diet.

In Tables VII and IX the diets were satisfactorily constituted with respect to all factors other than proteins, so the results of the experiments described turned entirely on the biological value of the proteins of the rations. The formulas for the rations used in these experiments are given in full on pages 117 and 119. be reduced to as low a level as will serve to keep the body in nitrogen or protein equilibrium.

Table X Composition Of The Diets Described In Table IX

In order to demonstrate whether such a regimen is safe for the adult Chittenden tested upon himself the proposition which had hitherto been accepted on the authority of Voit and of At-water, that the average adult at medium work requires about 116-120 grams of protein per day. He was able to reduce his protein intake to about one-third this amount and as a result felt better and was clearer mentally than he had been on a more liberal protein dietary. A brief comment has already been given of the experimental demonstration which he planned and carried out during 1903-04 at Yale University, in which a group of faculty men, a group of students and a group of soldiers participated. During a period of nine months while this study was going on the men reduced their protein intake to about half the accepted standard requirements. There was no evidence that these men were not in excellent physical condition at the end of the period of observation, and the deduction was drawn that such a dietary regimen appeared for an indefinite period to be suitable for the maintenance of physiological well-being in the adult.

Reference has also been made to the experiments of F. G. Benedict, which covered the period of a school year, the experimental subjects being a college group of volunteer students. This investigator was led to abandon his earlier view that a liberal protein dietary best serves the promotion of physical health, and to conclude that his experience with young men restricted for a few months to an abstemious diet low in protein warranted the acceptance of the dietary principles enunciated by Chittenden.