Blessed is he who maketh due proofe. With due proofe and with discreet assaye Wise men may learn new things every day. Thomas Norton (b. 1493) in Ordinall of Alkimy.Only one paper has been selected for this issue of Classics in Obesity. It is entitled "The original use of doubly labeled water to measure energy expenditure in animals," by Lifson et al. (36). This paper is important because it provides an insight into the possibility of a new method of indirectly quantitating the expenditure of energy in freeliving animals and human beings. Energy expenditure from the metabolism of ingested food or body nutrient stores is onehalf of the equation for energy balance articulated in the 19th century as the First Law of Thermodynamics or the principle that energy is conserved. However, this law did not pull back the veil of objective truth sufficiently for the work of Lifson et al. (36). Their work required several additional unveilings of basic metabolism and isotope chemistry that were not possible until the mid-20th century. I will first review the development of calorimetry, followed by the use of doubly labeled water.
CalorimetryIt is appropriate that energy expenditure should be the subject for three Classics in Obesity, because it has been the subject of study for more than two centuries (1,8,11,12,15,17,(24)(25)(26)(27)29,38,4145,52,57).The paper by Lavoisier and LaPlace (31) was the first in this series dealing with energy expenditure (10). Lavoisier and LaPlace, in parallel with Crawford (12) in the late 18th century, developed direct calorimeters and applied them to measuring heat loss in animals. Although they both showed the similarity of metabolism to a slow combustion, Lavoisier discovered the concept of oxidation which overthrew the previously entrenched phlogiston theory of Stahl (55).The second paper on energy expenditure in this series was from Atwater and Benedict (9). Atwater and Benedict (4) and Rubner (52) independently demonstrated that the First Law of Thermodynamics, formulated by Mayer (40) and Helmholtz (20), applied to both animals and human beings.New methods are one of the cornerstones for advances in science. The discovery of the microscope (32), the introduction of radioactive isotopes (2 1) into clinical medicine, and the development of the radio-immunoassay for hormones (7) are but three in a long list. This paper is about another method that was originally developed in animals and then applied to the study of energy expenditure in human beings with substantial new discoveries.The first two calorimeters were those of Lavoisier and LaPlace (31) and Crawford (12). Crawford measured the heat given off by his guinea pigs as the temperature increased the water surrounding the cage. Lavoisier and LaPlace used the melting of ice surrounding the cage of their guinea pigs to determine heat production. The oxygen theory that resulted from Lavoisier's work provided the basis for indirect calorimetry. Among other firsts, Lavoisier conducted the first study of human metabolism by measuring the oxy...