"It may be doubted if continued efficiency could be maintained with such low values as these, and very prolonged observations would be necessary to establish the facts. But all subjects of the experiments who applied the principles intelligently agreed in finding a very marked reduction in their needs, and experienced an increase in their sense of well-being and an increase in their working powers.
"One fact fully confirmed by the Cambridge observations consists in the effect of the special habits described upon the waste products of the bowel. These are greatly reduced in amount, as might be expected; but they are also markedly changed in character, becoming odourless and inoffensive, and assuming a condition which suggests that the intestine is in a healthier and more aseptic condition than is the case under ordinary circumstances.
"Although the experiments hitherto made are, as already stated, only preliminary in nature and limited in scope, they establish beyond all question that a full and careful study of the matter is urgently called for.
"For this fuller study the Cambridge laboratories do not possess at present either the necessary equipment or the funds to provide it. For the detailed study of the physical efficiency of a man under varying conditions, elaborate and expensive apparatus is required; and the advantages claimed for the special treatment of the food just discussed can only be fully tested by prolonged and laborious experiments calling for a considerable staff of workers.
"It is of great importance that the mind of the lay public should be disabused of the idea that medical science is possessed of final information concerning questions of nutrition. This is very far indeed from being the case. Human nutrition involves highly complex factors, and the scientific basis for our knowledge of the subject is but small; where questions of diet are concerned, medical teaching, no less than popular practice, is to a great extent based upon empiricism.
"But the scientific and social importance of the question is clearly immense, and it is greatly to be desired that its study should be encouraged.
"M. Foster.
"April 26th, 1902."