Women's Christian College,
Cathedral P.O., Madras, India,
March 12, 1931.Dear Miss Turner,
I am awfully ashamed not to have thanked you for the perfectly sweet little Danish spoon you sent me. I love it, for itself, & because it's from you, & because it's from Denmark. I am longing to ee you & hear you tell about your experiences there. I wish any of my friends were in the country. There are the two who toured India last year, Miss Ingrid Adolph who went to Kashmir with us, & her mother. We gave them your address, but Ingrid wrote me that she had lost it & I haven't written her yet. Hers is "Salem", Gentofte.
Each time I have meant to write you the time has seemed too short for telling you all about the exciting diet experiments I've been doing since I came back from Singapore. Briefly this is what happened. 3 low metab. students took for 8 days a diet with 78 gms. of protein (chiefly from fish) & 2700 calories. The nitrogen output averaged 5.6 gms; (representing only 34 gm. of protein). Then the same three plus a 4th, took for 8 days a diet with 34 gms. protein (all veg. except 2 gm. from milk) and 2800 calories. On this diet the Nitrogen output averaged 2.7 gms. (0.06 per kg.) (representing 16 gms. protein). I joined the 4 for a 3rd diet for 7 days with 95 gms. protein (fish, milk & curds, flour & dahl), and 28pp calories. The average nitrogen output of the 4 Indian subjects was 8.6 (51.6 protein = 6 x 8.6) (range 7.5 to 9.1) and my own was 9.0! I was certainly amazed to find myself using no more of the protein than they did. I have a little pet theory now about a possible effect of chillies on the alimentary canal that I am longing to test out, but it is exam time & out of the question. The diets were all good ones, not too bulky (the last had only 62 gms. of rice), well assorted & supplied with vitamins & minterals. But they all had chillies. The base metabolism of all the Indian subjects remained steady on all 3 diets; mine on the high protein diet went up distinctly higher than it has ever been in India. The two measurements then were -3 & -10; I have just now been done again with 2 days of -15 which is just where I've been ever since I came back. The thing is terribly interesting & absorbing & in July I'll get onto it again, repeating the last diet on the same subjects for a longer period & then try the same thing without chillies. The Indians will hate it! If that shows nothing then we must somehow manage a European diet. There may be a racial difference in the specific dynamic action of protein. Ever so many possibilities - & only 2 years left!
I haven't touched circulation for many months. Of course vital capacities got a lot of attention because of the Bangkok paper. Since then I have collected about 100 more measurements, & am going to do the medical school next Monday which will give me 60-70 more. I had hoped to have 1000 before I go home, but the numbers of students here is so small that it may not be possible in the time left.
At present it seems to me that the thing to do is to get to the bottom of this question of the protein metabolism. If they do not utilize more than half of the ingested protein then we can hardly begin to relate protein intake to basal metabolism. But where is it going, & if it is simply being thrown out in the feces - why? I'm awfully excited over it. And - I'm going to Singapore for 5 weeks this summer to work in Dr. Rosedale's lab. Things straightened out there finally & he is staying, & has said that if I'll come they'll get me anything I need to work with & give chemical assistance & interest & everything to make a glorious summer. The last expression is mine, not his! I shall hope to get confidence in doing ureas, uric acid, NH3 & creatine. Also to do at least 1 good food analysis straightthrough. I haven't got a calorimeter but I believe they'll get one for me to use there & then perhaps Dr. Benedict will think it a good investment for here. I've almost no money left of the college gifts for research. Bangkok took such a heap of that & my own that there is no prospect of buying anything more than oxygen for a long time. So the opportunity of going to Singapore is even more welcome. And it is so good to get to a lab where there are other fellows working, too, keen & friendly, & a good library. It seems to me that I must get the Journal of Nutrition. Du Bois has just sent me his reprints of his "Recent Advances in Basal Metabolism" & I see many references to papers in that Journal. No one in Madras has it but they have it in Singapore.
Not going to the hills is out of the ordinary for the college. We are supposed to go for 6 weeks. As it is I'll have a week in Bangalore (about 4000 feet) before I elave for Singapore & three weeks in Kodai (7500) after, besides 12 days on the sea. Miss McDougall is backing me up in the plan, quite appreciating the value of the mental stimulus; it is Edith Coon who is afraid of a "precedent". No one here has ever tried to escape the hills. We're glad enough to go, except when there is something very special like this. I am more fit just now than I have ever been in India, & as fit as ever at home. Ever so many people have remarked about it.
Miss Stokey may wait & go with me as far as Singapore. She wants to go also to Bangkok & will spend a long time in Java. We'll sail on a French line April 22nd, straight from here to Singapore. If you should happen to be writing so that it should reach me after April 18th (the last foreign mail before I leave) you might send it straight to Singapore, c/o Dr. J. L. Rosedale, Biochemistry Dept., King Edward VIIth College of Medicine, Singapore, Straits Settlements. I'll sail from there for Colombo June 3rd & go straight from Colombo to Kodai.
Thank you very much for sending on any Bangkok letter so promptly. Mother's last letter told of getting it in the same mail with a card I sent before sailing from Singapore & a letter that I mailed at Negapatam with yours!
I do hope it has been a good year for you. I wish I had had more experience when I met Krogh. He is a person one working in metabolism ought to be in touch with. Du Bois has been awfully kind about writing to me & sending me his stuff, & Earle in China & Radsma in Batavia, Millard Smith in Boston & others. It's great fun, isn't it, to get connected up with such folks.
I'm afraid Dr. Redfield will be disappointed if I don't do more in circulation so that the work can be published without Dr. Benedict's name. In all this protein business, it has been every bit my own job except financially & I wish he (Dr. B.) might offer to let me write it up (when finished, of course) & publish it alone as from this college & the Nutrition Lab. I can't possibly suggest it because it was part of the agreement when he loaned me apparatus that he should write it. And he has been such a brick throughout that I certainly don't want to presume. But it is my work & it would be easier for the Harvard peple to understand it so if I could write it up & publish it alone.
How I wish I could go home this way! Much love to you, Miss Turner,
from Eleanor.P.S. Miss Stokey's farewell meeting is today. [weeping face]