TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR METABOLISM OF TWO NORMAL INFANTS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE TOTAL ENERGY REQUIREMENTS OF INFANTS

Abstract

A series of investigations of the metabolism of normal infants were begun five years ago by Benedict and the writer at the Nutrition Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington with the object of obtaining a curve of the "basal" metabolism of normal infants. Some of these studies have already been published, and the rest are in the process of completion to be published later. Their primary object is to obtain the "basal" metabolism of infants (the metabolism at rest) for the purpose of comparing health with disease. The basal metabolism should mean that the subject is in complete muscular repose, and in the "postabsorptive" state, that is, when absorption of material from the alimentary tract has ceased. Since it is almost impossible to obtain a period of complete muscular repose in infants in the "postabsorptive" state and hungry, the term "basal" metabolism will be used in this communication in