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Transcription: [00:04:27]
{SPEAKER name="Genevieve Stearns"}
The whole pattern of life is just as nearly like that of the average child in home as it is possible to do.

[00:04:35]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
It's a very carefully controlled experiment then, in that sense.

[00:04:39]
{SPEAKER name="Genevieve Stearns"}
Unless it's carefully controlled, it isn't worth doing, you know.

[00:04:42]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
I see, and do you start in early?

[00:04:46]
{SPEAKER name="Genevieve Stearns"}
We start it at birth.

[00:04:48]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
At birth and they carry on through.

[00:04:50]
{SPEAKER name="Genevieve Stearns"}
But you can't study the same child all the time.

[00:04:54]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
No, no I see.

[00:04:55]
{SPEAKER name="Genevieve Stearns"}
You pick up different groups of children. Different age groups. [[cross-talk]]

[00:04:59]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
For different periods. [[cross-talk]] How long, normally, is one child under observation in this way?

[00:05:06]
{SPEAKER name="Genevieve Stearns"}
Usually, about six months. Some of the toddler-age. Because nobody had studied them, they're too hard to study. It takes tremendous patience. [[laughter]]

[00:05:19]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
And a large staff.

[00:05:20]
{SPEAKER name="Genevieve Stearns"}
And loving care and a large staff. Some of them, we've had for as long as 20 months. And they were children of staff or students in the university who were willing to have us take of their children, so you know they felt assured we gave them really good care.

[00:05:40]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
Well, I'm sure you did. It's most interesting and very useful to do it, seems to me. Now, in general, have you got some general conclusions? A few weeks ago, Dr. Stearns, you attended a meeting in New York on protein and nutrition, which was under the hospices of the New York Academy of Sciences and the DuPont company.

[00:06:06]
{SPEAKER name="Watson Davis"}
At that meeting, I know they talked about all sorts of things. Particularly, protein requirements of children. Now, what have you found out in that regard?

[00:06:19]
{SPEAKER name="Genevieve Stearns"}
Well, we found that the protein requirement will depend on the age of the child and on the rate of growth of the child, and the rate of growth of his muscles in particular. Because they're the biggest tissue of the body, and something we can watch quite carefully, in rate of growth. And children do not grow evenly throughout the period of childhood.

[00:06:51]
{SPEAKER name="Genevieve Stearns"}
They grow very rapidly in early infancy and begin to slow down in late infancy and keep on slowing down. Until by the time they're 5, they're growing very slowly. We used to wonder why that was true. But now we know it's because they are changing the pattern of their growth.