Total nitrogen content of the day’s food = 9.025 grams. _May 23._ Breakfast.--Sliced banana 201 grams, cream 100 grams, sugar 28 grams, griddle cakes 103 grams, syrup 48 grams. Lunch.--Consommé 150 grams, rice croquette 140 grams, syrup 48 grams, fried potato 100 grams, bread 36 grams, butter 15 grams, apple sauce 90 grams, coffee 75 grams, sugar 7 grams. Dinner.--Vegetable soup 100 grams, bacon 20 grams, potato croquette 50 grams, string beans 120 grams, macaroni 104 grams, bread 26 grams, water ice 184 grams. Total nitrogen content of the day’s food = 8.393 grams. _May 24._ Breakfast.--Orange 80 grams, fried rice 186 grams, syrup 72 grams, coffee 100 grams, cream 50 grams, sugar 21 grams. Lunch.--Celery soup 125 grams, bread 34 grams, butter 19 grams, boiled onion 127 grams, boiled potato 150 grams, tomato sauce 50 grams, stewed prunes 189 grams, cream 50 grams. Dinner.--Tomato soup 125 grams, bread 21 grams, fried potato 100 grams, spinach 130 grams, cream pie 158 grams, coffee 100 grams, cream 50 grams, sugar 14 grams. Evening.--Ginger ale 250 grams. Total nitrogen content of the day’s food = 7.284 grams. Here, again, we have dietaries not particularly attractive to every one, but they represent the choice of an individual who was following his own preferences, and like the preceding dietaries they are characterized by simplicity. In any event, they were quite adequate for the wants of the body, and their value to us lies in the proof they afford that a relatively small intake of proteid food will not only bring about and maintain nitrogen equilibrium for many months, and probably indefinitely, but that such a form of diet is equally as effective with vigorous athletes, accustomed to strenuous muscular effort, as with professional men of more sedentary habits. Further, these many months of observation with different individuals all lead to the opinion that there are no harmful results of any kind produced by a reduction in the amount of proteid food to a level commensurate with the actual needs of the body. Body-weight, health, physical strength, and muscular tone can all be maintained, in partial illustration of which may be offered two photographs of one of the eight athletes taken toward the end of the experiment; pictures which are certainly the antithesis of enfeebled muscular structure, or diminished physical vigor. [Illustration: STAPLETON _Photograph taken in the middle of the experiment, in April_] CHAPTER VI FURTHER EXPERIMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS BEARING ON TRUE FOOD REQUIREMENTS