It is a matter of interest, relative to the patience required in science, to state that Dr. Hopkins and Mr. Cole were fourteen months searching for the fugitive tryptophane element after they received their first clew to its whereabouts. When isolated, tryptophane masses in a substance having the appearance of silver, but not the solidity of that metal.—HORACE FLETCHER.] EXPERIMENTS UPON HUMAN NUTRITION NOTE BY SIR MICHAEL FOSTER, K.C.B., M.P., F.R.S. In 1901 Dr. Ernest Van Someren submitted to the British Medical Association, and afterwards to the Congress of Physiologists at Turin, an account of some experiments initiated by Mr. Horace Fletcher. These experiments went to show that the processes of bodily nutrition are very profoundly affected by the preliminary treatment of the food-stuffs in the mouth, and indicated that great advantages follow from the adoption of certain methods in eating. The essentials of these special methods, stated briefly and without regard to certain important theoretical considerations discussed by Dr. Van Someren, consist of a specially prolonged mastication which is necessarily associated with an insalivation of the food-stuffs much more thorough than is obtained with ordinary habits. The results brought to light by the preliminary experimental trials went to show that such treatment of the food has a most important effect upon the economy of the body, involving, in the first place, a very notable reduction in the amount of food--and especially of proteid food--necessary to maintain complete efficiency. In the second place this treatment produced, in the experience of its originators, an increase in the subjective and objective well-being of those who practise it, and, as they believe, in their power of resistance to the inroads of disease. These secondary effects may indeed be almost assumed as a corollary of the first mentioned; because there can be little doubt that the ingestion of food--and perhaps especially of proteid food--in excess of what is, under the best conditions, sufficient for maintenance and activity, can only be deleterious to the organism, clogging it with waste products which may at times be of a directly toxic nature. In the autumn of 1901 Mr. Fletcher and Dr. Van Someren came to Cambridge with the intention of having the matter more closely inquired into, with the assistance of physiological experts. The matter evoked considerable interest in Cambridge, and observations were made not only upon those more immediately interested, but upon other individuals, some of whom were themselves medical men and trained observers.