A study of the metabolism of a vegetarian / by John M. Swan, M.D., from the Laboratory of physiological chemistry, University of Pennsylvania.

  • Swan, John M. (John Mumford), 1870-1949
Date:
[1905]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A study of the metabolism of a vegetarian / by John M. Swan, M.D., from the Laboratory of physiological chemistry, University of Pennsylvania. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Extracted from the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, June, 1905 A STUDY OF THE METABOLISM OF A VEGETARIAN. By John M. Swan, M.D., OF PHILADELPHIA. (From the Laboratory of Physiological Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania.) The patient, a student in one of the departments of the University of Pennsylvania, on whom the observations here reported were made, consulted me on March 10, 1903, complaining of a mild infection of the respiratory tract. He was then twenty years old, tall, amemic- looking, and not at all robust in make-up. During the course of my examination I determined that the infection was not of a tuber¬ culous nature, and learned that the patient was the son of vege¬ tarian father and mother, and that his grandparents had also been vegetarians, as he was himself. I induced him to weigh and record the articles of his diet, to furnish me with his entire twenty-four hours’ urine, and to keep a record of his body weight daily for a week. He also submitted samples of the milk that he drank, so that I might determine the amount of nitrogen that he was ingesting with this article of diet, the only animal food that he took. From the submitted twenty-four hours’ urine I determined (1) the total volume passed, (2) the amount of nitrogen excreted, with its equivalent in urea, using the Kjeldahl method, and (3) the phos¬ phorus excretion expressed as P205, using the uranium acetate method. From the diet lists submitted I calculated the amount of nitrogen ingested with the food as follows: The Kjeldahl method was used on five specimens of milk, thus giving an accurate estimate of the amount of nitrogen ingested with that food. From these five deter¬ minations an average was taken, and the nitrogen in the remainder of the milk used, samples of which, for one reason or another, could not be obtained, was estimated, using that average as a basis. The nitrogen-content of the other articles of diet was calculated from Atwater’s tables.1 There are certain unavoidable inaccuracies in this study, on account of the fact that the subject was human and could not be absolutely controlled. These inaccuracies are: 1. That already referred to concerning the nitrogen-content of certain of the speci¬ mens of milk. 2. The absence of analyses of certain substances used by this individual in his diet; for instance, ginger wafers, cookies.