Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/206

194 which they were confined had a cubic capacity of about nine hundred feet, and from thirty to thirty-five cubic feet of air were passed through each cell per minute. The mean temperature of the cells for the entire year was 61°; the highest monthly mean, 66·5°, occurred in August; the lowest, 56·9°, in March.

The diet was uniform, with the exception of the alterations ordered by the medical officer in individual cases, and consisted of the following articles daily: Bread, twenty ounces; meat without bone, four ounces; soup, half a pint—these are equivalent to about seven ounces and three quarters of butcher's meat—potatoes, one pound; skimmed milk three quarters of a pint; gruel, one pint, containing two ounces of oatmeal. The dress was, a cloth jacket, waistcoat, and trousers; cap and stock; linen shirt; woolen stockings, drawers, and under-shirt.

The prisoners were sent out to exercise in the open air nine hours a week; the exercise was for one hour at a time; the men walked in circles, and every ten minutes they ran for a hundred and fifty yards. They were all supplied with work, and were for the most part employed in making mats and matting of cocoa-fiber and other materials; some worked at tailoring and shoemaking, and a few had other work to perform.

All the prisoners were weighed on admission, and at the latter end of every calendar month during their stay.

The number of prisoners over whom these observations extended was four thousand; the period of time occupied, ten years; the average number weighed monthly, three hundred and seventy-two; and the total number of weighings, forty-four thousand and four. . The men had all been weighed by Mr. Milner or under his superintendence, and the series of observations was unbroken.

The results of these weighings were tabulated on various bases, with a view to isolate the effect of a certain number of variable on the gain or loss of weight among these prisoners, and to determine the amount of influence exerted by each of these conditions.

The conditions selected for investigation were:

 1. The season of the year. 2. The period of imprisonment. 3. The employment in prison. 4. The age of the prisoners on admission. 5. The height of prisoners on admission.

The influence exerted by each of these conditions was well marked, and, with one exception, viz., the influence of season, the deductions were such as would have been anticipated.

The first showed the influence of the season of the year on the weight of a number of men placed during the entire year under circumstances of food, clothing, and work which did not differ, and who, for the greater part of the day, were in a temperature which did not vary greatly between the hottest and the coldest months. Under such