There has been an increasing amount of investigation on the metabolism of the new-born infant during the past few years, but only recently enough evidence has accumulated to be of any practical value to the general practitioner. This communication deals only with that part of the metabolism which is known as the respiratory metabolism, and from which the energy metabolism may be calculated.
The earliest study of the respiratory metabolism of the new-born infant was in 1877 by Forster,1 who measured the carbon dioxid output of an infant 14 days old. Since then many investigators have recorded observations made by them, using different forms of apparatus. The most important of these was published in Danish in such an inaccessible form that it was overlooked in recent writings on the subject. This work by Hasselbach was reported in 1904. The original work, which is given in full in Publication 233