Introduction to the Theory of Statistics

Abstract

during 1943-44 a study of semi-starvation in volunteers under laboratory conditions. Thirty-two conscientious objectors offered themselves as subjects and lived in the laboratory of Physiological Hygiene for over a year. During a control period of three months they were given a diet containing approximately 3,500 calories per day. Then for 6 months the diet was reduced by 1,570 calories in the form of potatoes, cabbage, turnips, and cereals, and only very small portions of animal protein each week. The experimental diet resembled approximately that consumed under famine conditions in Europe. During this period they lost on an average 24 per cent. of body weight, and were reduced to a condition closely resembling famine victims. All at some time had famine oedema. The subjects were then studied for a further 3 months in the laboratory under various regimes of rehabilitation, and most of them were observed at intervals for a further 6 to 9 months. A year after the end of the starvation period, all had returned to normal and were apparently none the worse. During the year in the laboratory the bas c physiological and psychological state of the subjects was reviewed at regular intervals by teams of investigators. Important observations were made on the weight changes, the distribution of body fluids, the basal metabolism, the energy exchanges during exercise, the capacity for work, the size of the heart, adaptations in the circulatory system, and changes in the cellular elements in the blood. The psychological observations included studies of behaviour patterns, personality changes and intellectual abilities. The many important findings cannot be summarized in a review article. The Minnesota experiment, which will bccome a classic, was planned and executed by a co-ordinated team of first class investigators, and there is no record of any comparable experiment either in human physiology or in psychology. The general plan will be of interest and indeed an obligatory study for future investigators into the problems presented by adaptation of the physiological and psychological processes in man to prolonged adverse environmental conditions, and the details are important to those concerned with the practical problems of medicine in a famine. Unfortunately the choice of presentation of this great experiment is unsatisfactory. "Human Starvation" weighs 3 45 kg. and suffers, like many American books to-day, from over-nutrition. Striving for completeness, the authors have stuffed the book with observations made by persons less competent or less well-placed than themselves, and in consequence the fascinating account of the Minnesota experiment is often buried. Chapter 3, containing 29 pages, is entirely devoted to old work, long dead, which might have been allowed to rest; there are many other examples of the citation of inferior work. There must be many physiologists, psychologists, and physicians who would like a brief straightforward account of this great experiment for their personal use. Is it too much to ask Professor Keys to provide such an account, which would fall within the limits of a private purse, and slip easily into the suitcase of a physician setting out by aeroplane on famine-relief work ? R. PASSMORE