At the dawn of the 20th century, a new invention and its esteemed creator came to define food science in The Argus, then the University, and ultimately across the globe. This issue of the Argives will try to reconstruct the man behind the Atwater half of the Hall-Atwater Laboratory and speak to the controversy surrounding his brainchild: the nutritive calorie.

On March 24, 1896, The Argus published an unattributed article entitled “The Respiration Calorimeter” that celebrated the University’s newfound scientific prestige among the press.

“During the past three or four days the New York and Boston papers have published to the world an account of the investigations now going on at Judd Hall in connection with the Respiration Calorimeter,” The Argus reported. “Food investigations…have been in progress in the laboratory here and more or less familiar to Wesleyan students since 1878; but the more extensive experiments now in progress make a special notice desirable.”

In the same issue, The Argus also reprinted a number of especially exalting lines.

“In all the world’s scientific history, perhaps, the hand of man has never perfected a more complicated or delicate system of mechanism than is used in these Wesleyan experiments,” an uncredited blurb claimed.

Chemistry professor Wilbur Olin Atwater was the scientist behind the buzz. Beloved among the University’s students, and famed for founding the Agricultural Experiment Station, Atwater harnessed the opportunity to publicize his exciting new research.

“Research upon nutrition has reached the point where the study of the application of the laws of the conservation of matter and of energy in the living organs is essential,” Atwater said in the article. “That is to say, we must be able to balance the income and outgo of the body, and this balance must be expressed both in terms of matter and of energy. For this purpose a Respiration Calorimeter has been elaborated.”

The respiration calorimeter was a mystery machine brimming with potential. Importantly, Atwater was able to articulate its function to a general audience.

“This is an apparatus in which an animal or a man may be placed for a number of hours or days, and the amounts and composition of the food and drinks and inhaled air; the amounts and composition of the excreta, solid, liquid, and gaseous; the potential energy of the materials taken into the body and given off from it; the quantity of heat radiated from the body, and the mechanical equivalent of the muscular work done, can all be measured,” he said (presumably without pausing to take a breath). “The experimenting is complicated, costly and time-consuming. The results already obtained are, however, very encouraging in their promise of future success.”

Already, Atwater’s pioneering experiments and thoughtful planning had earned his project widespread attention.

“Two experiments of fifty-six hours each have been made previously[,] but the one just closed[,] in which Dr. O.F. Tower remained in the enclosure one hundred and twenty-five hours[,] is by far the most extensive yet made,” Atwater remarked. “The observations taken…will be submitted to the Department of Agriculture at Washington.”

In the meantime, a series of studies occupied the laboratory. The calorimeter waits for no one.

“At ten o’clock Monday morning Mr. A. W. Smith was enclosed in the calorimeter and will remain for about two hundred and fifty hours,” wrote The Argus.

On May 5, 1896, a second uncredited article entitled “The Respiration Calorimeter” covered the calorimeter’s developments that had occurred since The Argus’ last calorimeter coverage.

“The experiments so far performed, two of fifty-six hours each, one of five days and one of twelve and one-half days in length, have been highly successful,” The Argus reported.

However, as Argus writers made clear, reporters for other newspapers had lost the thread.

“People in general and newspaper reporters in particular have a great hunger and thirst after the sensational and extraordinary,” The Argus explained. “Hence, it is not surprising that a great deal of interest should be manifested in the recent experiments with the Respiration Calorimeter. But most of the reporters were so interested in the spectacular phase of the experiments that they quite overlooked the underlying principles…. They seemed to forget the fact that the experiments are simply a means to an end, and not the end itself.”

To clarify the ongoing experiments, The Argus restated the aims of Atwater’s inquiries.

“Perhaps the most important law in the realm of physics is that of the conservation of energy,” The Argus wrote. “This law has been proved by numerous experiments…. It has been inferred that it is also true in the case of animals, man for instance. For, to even a casual observer, it is evident that there is a close analogy between a man and a machine.”

In this regard, the remainder of Atwater’s work aligns with a desire to reverse-engineer the human body and translate its functions into actionable formulas. This framework, and the fact of the year being 1896, often resulted in imperfect science.

“The heat which a slice of bread or steak gives up to the body if no work is done would be just the same as if it were thrown into a furnace and burned […],” The Argus wrote. “The analogy is therefore a close one[,] and the probability that the law of the conservation of energy applies to the man as well as to the machine is very great. To prove this experimentally, to make the probability a scientific certainty, is the primary object for which the Respiration Calorimeter exists.”

Given the frequency of misunderstandings and intensity of curiosity around the calorimeter, The Argus published its first thorough description of the popular invention.

“It is a copper lined box 4 ½  by 7 feet and 6 ½  feet high,” The Argus outlined. “Light enters through a single window. Pure air, dried by freezing out the moisture, is pumped in at the rate of two or three cubic feet per minute. The person under investigation radiates heat fast enough to warm the room to an uncomfortably high temperature, but the surplus heat is absorbed and carried away by a stream of cold water flowing through copper radiators…. Air currents are circulated outside the calorimeter, so that no heat is gained or lost through the apparatus.”

The public remained insatiable, which in turn attracted the attention of additional political figures. On May 12, 1896, an Argus article entitled “Scientific Study and Research at Wesleyan” reported on a recent speech from then-Connecticut Governor Owen Vincent Coffin.

“The nutritive value of different foods, and their proper preparation for the use of man, is a subject of vital interest to our people,” Coffin said. “The pioneer work in this line…was begun at Wesleyan University…in cooperation with several scientific departments of the United States Government. The fruits have been so valuable that…Congress has lately made a special appropriation for the distribution of such inquiries throughout the Union.”

Coffin walked through the timeline of food research at the University. Fish, fatty livestock, and family nutrition comprised a few key moments.

“In connection with the studies of dietaries, a considerable number of food materials have been analyzed,” reflected Coffin. “The principal work in this direction since 1890, however, has been in the analyses of foods exhibited at the World’s Fair…. Some five hundred specimens were analyzed, and the investigation thus made was more extensive than any similar one before undertaken.”

While Coffin naturally focused on the calorimeter’s implications on public policy, he made note of the relevance of Atwater’s ultimate goals and human mechanics.

“The study of food and nutrition has shown the need of learning the fuel-values of food materials,” he asserted. “That is to say, we must be able to determine the balance of the income and outgo of the body, and this balance must be expressed both in terms of matter and of energy. 

By Dec. 9, 1896, Atwater was a man of ever-increasing political consequence. In an uncredited article entitled “Results of Experiments,” The Argus highlighted the acclaimed professor’s new federal connections.

“Professor Atwater made a trip to Washington, recently, and carried with him a detailed report of the experiments with the respiration calorimeter, which were made up to that time,” The Argus shared. “The report is to be published by the government.”

Students at the University were dazzled by Atwater’s success and connections. Soon, they would see that familiar class materials made national standards in nutrition science.

“Students of Wesleyan are familiar with the wall charts illustrating the chemical composition and nutritive value of food materials as they have been exhibited and used in connection with some of Professor Atwater’s lectures to his classes,” The Argus wrote. “These charts have been published by the government, and are being distributed among the schools and colleges in every state in the Union by the U. S. Department of Agriculture […] The government is thus distributing information and calling the attention of the public […] [so] that it may lead to its being introduced into the courses of study in the public schools.”

Atwater and The Argus labeled the calorimeter as a University success, adding to student pride in the projects.

“As is well known the pioneer work has been done in the Chemical Laboratory of Wesleyan,” The Argus reflected. “A large part of the material embodied in these charts and bulletins comes from the investigations that have been going on in the laboratory for the last fifteen years.”

Atwater’s revolutionary work was not universally accepted for a variety of reasons. His growing fame and controversy went hand in hand, as an article entitled “Professor Atwater’s Chicago Trip” revealed in The Argus on March 14, 1900.

“Professor Atwater lately spent several days in Chicago where […] he addressed the annual meeting of the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational Association on Alcohol Physiology and Superintendence,” The Argus reported. “[…] The annual meeting of this department is said to be the most important educational gathering of the year.”

Atwater’s nutrition research on alcohol posed a grave threat to the rhetoric used in branches of the temperance movement. The conference’s attendees pushed Atwater to justify his unsettling findings.

“To teach that alcohol, even in moderate quantities, is always harmful and never useful is a subversion of the truth,” Atwater expressed. “The injury done by such teaching is two-fold: The boy learns later that he has been mistaught and loses faith, so that the effect is to undo much of the good that was intended. Furthermore, the child gets the idea that deception is allowable in a good cause, and that the end justifies the means.”

A skeptic next asked whether giving boys the impression that alcohol is a harmless food or lying that alcohol is a poison to protect them would do greater harm.

“Both are mistakes, and both are wrong, and it is our duty to avoid both,” Atwater answered. “The fact that one thing is less wrong than another does not make it right.”

The Argus says hearty applause followed Atwater’s passionate address, and nearly all the men and women attending the conference agreed with his view.

There were still greater heights for Atwater to reach, and reach them he surely did. On Oct. 10, 1900, The Argus published an uncredited article entitled “Professor Atwater’s Exhibit at Paris,” exploring just that event.

“Professor Atwater received a gold medal at the Paris Exposition for his exhibit comprising several bound volumes of reports of investigations […],” The Argus claimed. “Besides these, the exhibit included the Bomb Calorimeter […] and a complete model of the Respiration Calorimeter, about one fourth the size of the Atwater-Rosa Calorimeter.”

Arguably more important than the medal, however, were the reactions of others in attendance.

“So much interest was aroused in scientific circles by Professor Atwater’s exhibit, that three Respiration Calorimeters are now being constructed,” celebrated The Argus. “One at Budapeste, one at Brown University, and one at the State College of Pennsylvania. The one at the State College is to be somewhat larger…so that steers may be experimented upon.”

The exponential growth and array of reactions to Atwater’s work continued to shape the calorimeter, and by extension the calorie, long after the professor left the field. According to a Historical Row blog post from the University, Atwater suffered a stroke in 1904 and was soon unable to continue his work in the same capacity.

Before Atwater passed away on Sep. 22, 1907, The Argus published an article entitled “Professor Benedict to Take Charge of Carnegie Nutrition Laboratory” on March 13, 1907, summarizing Atwater’s resounding legacy and outlining the future of his work.

“For several years past, the nutrition work so firmly established by Professor Atwater at Wesleyan has been substantially subsidized by the Carnegie Institution of Washington,” The Argus wrote. “It will be of interest to many of the alumni to know that in the last four years, grants to more than $30,000 have been made to Professors Atwater and Benedict.”

The Carnegie Foundation continued to back the program and expansion seemed long overdue.

 “The clinical advantages of Middletown were far too meagre to justify an elaborate continuation of the nutrition researches by the Carnegie Institution, and hence it has been decided…to erect a large laboratory for the special study of the nutrition of man…to be yearly subsidized by the Carnegie Institution,” The Argus explained. 

Although Atwater had been away from the project for a considerable amount of time, The Argus and seemingly the University at large continued to take pride in Atwater’s nutrition research.

“It is a remarkable fact that a research has been established and grown in a small college like Wesleyan to such proportions that it is impossible to carry it on with the facilities…in Middletown,” The Argus wrote. “Professor Atwater’s work is known the world over, and the establishment of this laboratory with Professor Benedict at its head, is a distinct tribute not only to Professor Atwater but likewise to Wesleyan University. For no similar instance has ever occurred in the history of American scientific research.”

Whether The Argus’ claim holds water, Professor Atwater, his calorimeter, and the history of the calorie remain one of a kind. 

Hope Smith can be reached at hnsmith@wesleyan.edu.

“From the Argives” is a column that explores The Argus’ archives (Argives) and any interesting, topical, poignant, or comical stories that have been published in the past. Given The Argus’ long history on campus and the ever-shifting viewpoints of its student body, the material, subject matter, and perspectives expressed in the archived article may be insensitive or outdated, and do not reflect the views of any current member of The Argus. If you have any questions about the original article or its publication, please contact Archivists Lara Anlar at lanlar@wesleyan.edu, Hope Smith at hnsmith@wesleyan.edu, and Maggie Smith at mssmith@wesleyan.edu.