Measuring the Horsepower of That Baby of Yours

The instruments showed that underweight babies produced more heat units or possessed more horsepower than did fat babies

Measuring the Horsepower of That Baby of Yours

DR. JOHN R. MURLIN, of Cornell University Medical College, has devised an apparatus which causes a baby to record its own horsepower. Horsepower is used in this sense merely as the expression of a unit of energy. Dr. Murlin devised this apparatus for use in the study of the energy requirement of the new-born child.

A baby unconsciously writes the story of its energy by means of its pulse and its breathing. A small cuff is attached to the left leg of the infant above the knee. From this cuff a tube leads to a glass connection, passing through the wall of the incubator and finally to a T-tube on the top of the incubator. One limb of this tube passes to an air-pump and the other to another T-tube. To the second T-tube a mercury pressure gage (manometer) is connected by one limb and a pressure-bottle to the other. From this bottle a transmission-tube leads to a recording drum. Thus with each pulse the baby makes a record.

Oddly enough, the fattest baby produced the smallest degree of horsepower. While sleeping the babies produced an average of .004 of a horsepower. It was determined that the normal heat production of recently fed, sleeping babies between two months and one year of age is .09 horsepower.