The faeces of children and adults : their examination and diagnostic significance with indications for treatment / by P.J. Cammidge.

  • Cammidge, P. J. (Percy John), 1872-
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The faeces of children and adults : their examination and diagnostic significance with indications for treatment / by P.J. Cammidge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    kilos (154 lb.), doing light work, would require about 2500 calories in the twenty-four' hours. Theoretically, this amount of energy would be supplied by a diet suggested by Voit, containing :— iiS grams of protein .. .. 4^4 calories 56 grams of fat .. .. •• 521 500 grams of carbohydrate .. .. 2050 3055 calories provided that all the food materials were fully utilized for the purposes of heat production in the body. As a matter of fact, although it is generally taken that :— I gram of protein jdelds . . . . 4-1 calories I gram of fat yields .... 9-3 I gram of carbohydrate yields . . 4'i ,, the heat value of the foods to the body is a little less than is shown by the calorimeter, owing to the loss of unoxidized products in the excretions, etc. Atwater, in his most recent experiments, estimates that 4J per cent of the nourishment taken is unutilized by the organism, while Riibner gives a slightly higher figure (5 to 5 J- per cent). Even in health, a certain proportion of the food ingested is rendered valueless to the body as the result of putrefactive and fermentative changes in the stomach and intestine, or is lost in the faeces, so that the actual caloric value of the food to the body is always less than the theoretical value of that taken by the mouth. As a rule, probably somewhere from 10 to 25 per cent should be deducted from the calculated value to represent this loss. In cases where digestion is defective, absorption is interfered with, or abnormal putrefactive or fermentative changes are going on in the gastro-intestinal tract, a much larger loss occurs. According to Riibner, an average healthy infant requires 100 calories per kilogram of its body weight for normal nutrition during the first three months of life, go calories during the second three months, and 80 or less subsequently ; but the total energy value of the food should not fall below 70 calories per kilogram, as this is about the maintenance minimum. Atwater states that children under two years require 0-3 of the food of a man doing ordinary work; from three to five years, 0-4; from six to nine years, 0-5 ; from ten to thirteen years, 0-6 ; from fourteen to sixteen years in the case of females, 07, and in the case of males, o-8. Canierer's cUet, which he considers sufficient for a youth of sixteen years, contains 75 grams of protein, 42 grams of fat, and 325 grams of carbohydrate daily, with a total energy yield of 2040 calories.'