Nutrition and the Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat

Diseases that afflict mankind seem to fall into two broad classifications–those from without and those from within–the infectious diseases from without and the degenerative diseases from within. Infections may attack swiftly; we often observe the cause and effect within weeks or even days. Degenerative disease may take a long time to develop. The lack of the needed nutrients in the cell shows no immediate effect; only after this lack has continued do its effects become evident–in caries of the teeth or degeneration of the structures around the teeth causing them to fall out, in chronic arthritis or degenerative changes in the heart and other organs. There is another contrast between infectious and degenerative diseases. Great advances have been made in the control of infections; but, in the civilized world degenerative diseases are on the increase. To be sure, nowadays people live longer than they used to; obviously the increase in degenerative disease is to that extent more apparent than real–entirely apart from any consideration of defective nutrition.

It seems that the laws of nutrition, when finally clarified, will lose much of their present complexity, as so well expressed by Harding:¹ Einstein has recently put forth his “Unified Field” theory which interlocks gravitation and electromagnetics in a single equation aiming to explain more and more phenomena by the use of a single formula. In studying the phenomena of metabolism we have resorted to fractionation–dividing each problem into its tiniest parts. The method is good and we are acquiring tentative answers to a large number of research problems. Each solved problem is like an identified fragment of a jigsaw puzzle; the time is approaching when we can fit these together, and as we see the pattern emerge we can more readily see what the fragments begin to mean.

Early in our studies of Nutrition it seemed that the internist was the one best fitted to observe and study the effects of deficiencies; but gradually it became clear that the tissues most easily observed are the skin and the eye, ear, nose, mouth and throat.

It seems clear that degenerative disease is due to poor nourishment. This concept might be briefly expressed:—A lack of the right food produces pathologic change in all tissues. As to vitamins, the main lack in our national intake is B Complex. For thousands of years bread had been good food. Then millers began removing vitamins and minerals, leaving only impoverished flour. Grain products now furnish one third of our food–and ninety eight percent of flour is white. Refined sugar is also a carbohydrate from which vitamins and minerals have been extracted, and sugar accounts for actually one seventh of the total food calories of the United States. In general, foods which spoil are good and foods which do not spoil are bad.

From the ideal and also the practical standpoint it is discouraging to face the fact that civilization affords foods of poor quality. It is so different from the days when vegetables came direct from the garden, milk direct from the cow, meats direct from “the killing”. In those days the boy took the grain to the mill, bringing home fresh-ground meal and flour. Today’s predicament is the unavailability of such foods; the only possibility is to make the best of a bad situation.

In this vein, as to the impossible ideal, Lee² makes the following suggestions: Eat no white flour or refined sugar. As sweets use only honey, brown sugar, maple sugar or refined saccharin; use fresh-ground wheat or other cereals exclusively, because some vitamins become oxidized in a few days. Freshness is the measure of wholesomeness. The very flavor of whole wheat changes day by day after it is ground up–like coffee; the finer the grinding, the faster its loss of vitamins. Many people are now finding the answer in a home grinder that can be obtained at low cost from department stores. Pasteurized milk is relatively valueless as a source of the calcium it is so highly recommended for, because pasteurization destroys the enzymes necessary for calcium assimilation; so rely on raw certified milk, if your local Medical Association makes it available. Citrus fruits are not dependable sources of “C” unless fresh. Oranges may be devoid of “C” if over three months old, although not differing in appearance from fresh fruit. Leafy vegetables may lose all their “C” in one week of storage, so the only dependable source is the roadside farmer or your own garden. Meat is kept in cold storage until it contains only a vestige of its original vitamin content; fresh fowl and fish are preferable for vitamin content. Peanut products, fresh roasted nuts or peanut butter, are good high protein substitutes for meat. Potatoes, like wheat, can support life indefinitely if eaten baked or boiled, but not mashed. Mashing exposes “C” to air causing its destruction. Potatoes have about one third the “C” content of oranges. Bananas contain every essential nutrient. So, we can list as basic dependable foods: milk, wheat, potatoes, bananas. Each will support human life if not devitalized by tampering. Meat will stand in this category, especially if fresh.

As long ago as 1906 Ladd and Stallings³ showed that the only excuse for using bleach is that it makes flour whiter. Bleaching also makes inferior flour look as “good” as superior flour. Bleach injures gluten. Even then the question was raised whether the U.S. Government should not prohibit the bleaching process because of its degradation of the bakery products. Their conclusions, even in 1906, condemned the process of bleaching. Lee⁴ comments that bleached flour was declared in 1919 by the U.S. Supreme Court to be a threat to public health; however, the bleaching still continues. As to sugar–most people enjoy dessert; but Harding points out that sweets make one feel well fed without being well fed.

At a recent Midwinter Convention of the Research Study Club we presented a simple method of finding out what a patient eats. This was printed and distributed among many–and adopted by some. It has been suggested that this be reproduced here.

The nurse gives the patient a piece of paper on which there is an outline of “morning, noon and night” for two weeks. She then explains that immediately after each meal (while it is all fresh in mind) the patient is to write down what he ate; anything taken between meals is also to be written down. The patient reads his own handwriting to the doctor–at the end of two weeks. The doctor writes the word GOOD on one side of the page and BAD on the other side.. He listens to the patient and interrupts as needed so that he can make notes under the heading GOOD or the heading BAD.

Analysis: You will feel a bit awkward for a while. Everyone does. However, you will be doing a great service to your patient if you simply have him cut down on everything that is made from white flour and sugar. As it were, they reduce the “high octane” of the fuel on which we travel. It is perfectly possible for our automobile to go along on a wretched gasoline–that is the trouble. We think that because we are getting along, everything is all right. Far from it. For health, human fuel requires a high-octane rating.

All of us are confronted daily with problems due, wholly or in part, to lack of the right foods. For example–a “stuffy” nose; non-suppurative sinusitis; lesions of the conjunctiva and cornea, angles of the mouth and tongue; beginning nerve deafness with no apparent cause; and “catching colds” frequently.

Before we used our present routine we wasted time collecting the information. Now we find that the whole procedure can be done in twenty or thirty minutes, including instructions to the patient. The patient reads his own handwriting while you make notes. Then you give a piece of paper to the patient–on the one side the word BAD and on the other side the word GOOD; the patient then puts down your instructions in his own handwriting so that he also will have no difficulty in reading it.

Almost invariably you will find that there is a lack in the B Complex. Liver is prescribed twice weekly: oil is brought to a very high temperature in the skillet, the liver is dropped in until it is crisp on the outside–then turned over. The result is what we call “Eskimo Pie Liver”–crisp on the outside and rare on the inside. Wheat germ is helpful–a tablespoonful every morning or every other morning, given with cereal. Of course whole wheat bread, if you can get it. Large doses of the B Complex are often helpful; the amount may be reduced after the patient returns for further directions.

As to the sugar, exhort the patient to use as little as possible from now on. He may look shocked–until you explain that you have something far better–refined saccharin–five hundred times sweeter than sugar. It is perfect; no bitter taste. Naturally, saccharin cannot be dropped on any cereal, but instead is put in the milk or cream.

[Editor’s note: PPNF does not recommend the use of saccharin as part of a healthy diet.]

Well, so much for a beginning! Having once started you will then enlarge your information and be better and better able to answer specific questions—”Is this good?”—”Is that bad?” If this routine is followed the results will be fair, good or excellent. By prescribing the right food we are truly physicians of the eye, ear, nose and throat. If we do not, we are neglecting an important service to the patient.

One disease concerning which our knowledge is by no means commensurate with our interest and concern, is poliomyelitis. The rhinologist has been concerned with this disease for a long time. It was first thought that the matter was quite simple–infection enters through the nose and attacks the central nervous system. Forty-one years ago a virus was found in the degenerated areas of the nervous tissues; later it was thought that the cribriform plate was the portal of entry, and the zinc sulphate treatment came into vogue. The idea was to “toughen the mucosa” by spraying the zinc into the upper reaches of the nose. Although this treatment came to be used widely, it seemed so fantastic that we asked Dr. Leland Hunnicutt^6,7 to conduct experiments on dogs and monkeys for the Research Study Club. At that time the residents, internes and nurses of our County Hospital were all set to take this treatment. The histologic study by Dr. Hunnicutt showed a complete loss of olfactory epithelium and degeneration of the neurones leading from the surface. Because of these findings this treatment was abandoned at the hospital–and soon abandoned by everyone.

The opinion of authorities is well expressed by Bower:⁸ Based upon his experience with 6000 cases in a four year period at the Los Angeles General Hospital Bower gives his up-to-date concepts of polio. The virus that causes this disease is the “Legio Debilitans”. This virus occurs in three groups and representative strains from all three have been found. This disease of man has been reproduced by inoculating infectious human material into primates; and one strain has reproduced the disease in rodents. Whereas the virus may be recovered in only a low percentage of cases early in the disease by swabbing the nasopharynx, it may be obtained with relative ease and frequency for weeks and even months from stools–both of patients and of asymptomatic carriers. Bower states that in his hospital during this four year period doctors, nurses and attendants worked without masks yet none contracted the disease. (In contrast to this the 1934 epidemic had affected many nurses and several doctors in the same hospital.) During an epidemic people should be told to keep the hands clean constantly and to avoid excessive fatigue: no other steps have shown evidence of inhibiting the spread of the disease during an epidemic.

The National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis frankly states that we do not know how to prevent polio or how to stop it. The portal of entry is unknown. The usual methods of combating infection–serums, vaccines and chemotherapy–have had no effect. Quarantine has been abandoned as useless.

A recent experience illustrates our helplessness. A few days ago a Davis Cup champion aged 21 appears at 11 A.M.–and his match is to be at 1 P.M. His throat is so “sore” that he can’t swallow. He had been unable to eat any breakfast. No fever, pulse 60, blood-pressure normal and a perfectly normal appearance in nose, nasopharynx and throat. He is told “there is no infection, just a rheumatic sore throat, in the muscles”; he is advised to drink water in large quantities; to wear a light sweater, and play tennis. The next morning he is comfortable, and the next day entirely well. At the same time another young man also aged 21 presented a similar picture to a colleague; but the mother was the anxious kind, so for that reason and that reason alone, the patient was put in the hospital–where he died in 48 hours of bulbar polio–confirmed by autopsy. How can we prevent such things? What sort of disease is this polio?

It is no wonder that many strange and diverse suggestions have been advanced about this mysterious disease–all of them based upon what we eat. One group⁹ suspects alkaloid poisoning from the milk of cows which have been forced by the hot dry season to eat Jimson weed and cocklebur. Another group of reports has just appeared in a popular magazine.¹⁰ Several suspect that the virus is not the cause but the product of the disease; others note that areas with high content of calcium and phosphorus have little polio–and recommend eating bone-meal; another remarks the resemblance of polio to shell-fish disease and suggests this poisoning as a cause. Perhaps the most plausible speculation, although it has not worked out, was that lack of the B Complex, especially “B₁“, leads to pathologic change in central nervous tissues. The theory advanced by several clinicians^{11,12,13,14,15} is that the symptoms of polio resemble those of beri-beri which is recognized as due to lack of the B Complex, especially “B₁“; that “B₁” and “B₂” are concerned with cell respiration–which is most important in nerve tissue; that epidemics of polio were unknown through the ages until one hundred years ago and that man’s intake of “B₁” has been markedly reduced since the introduction about the same time of modern methods of milling wheat. These ideas are certainly of great interest and, at first thought, seem plausible. Local lesions due to the wrong food are observed in the eye, ear, nose and throat in patients otherwise apparently well and it seems reasonable that some such lesions could occur in the brain and cord. However, any nutritional disease like beri-beri and pellagra, continues on and on until the right food is given. In sharp contrast, polio often quits with the frost–as if cut off with a knife. Elaborate experiments with “B₁“, by Elvehjem¹⁶ and others¹⁷ led to diametrically opposite findings: Mice deprived of “B₁” were actually more resistant to the polio virus. The outstanding point about polio is that it occurs in epidemics; this fact would seem to confirm it as a communicable disease.

Looking backward, we come to realize more and more the value of the life work of Weston A. Price, D.D.S.¹⁸ Three pioneers in Nutrition have been Dr. Price in the United States, Sir Robert McCarrison in India and the Cheshire Doctors in England. Dr. Price might well be called “The Charles Darwin of Nutrition.” Turning from test tubes and microscopes to the hitherto unstudied evidence among human beings, Dr. Price sought the factors responsible for fine teeth among people who had them–the isolated primitives. The world became his laboratory. As he traveled, his findings led him to the belief that dental caries was merely one expression of physical degeneration from what he had suspected–nutritional deficiencies. Whole tribes and villages at varying latitudes, altitudes and temperatures provided many thousands of case studies which he carefully recorded by pen and camera. Specimens of the foods used by these isolated peoples were sent back to Cleveland, Ohio, for laboratory analyses–some of them over a period of years–to cover seasonal changes. Travelers, explorers and scientists have made it common knowledge that in their natural environment primitive peoples possess fine teeth. On this clue Dr. Price selected fourteen primitive groups, sufficiently isolated to have maintained themselves on their traditional diets. Many voyages carried him from villages in Switzerland and Gaelic villages in the Outer Hebrides to the Eskimos and Indians of North America, and to the Melanesian and Polynesian South Sea Islands. Thence he traveled to Africa, down to the Australian Aborigines, the New Zealand Maoris, and back to the primitive Indians of South America in the high Andes and coastal plains. Wherever he went, Dr. Price found the same thing. Stalwart bodies were typical of primitives on their traditional diets–rich in essential food factors. Primitive peoples, no matter where located, who were successfully maintaining their tribal pattern from one generation to another were found to be living on highly nutritious foods. While tribal foods varied as to source and kind, each tribe had learned the foods essential to vitality and reproduction. Laboratory analysis of these foods showed them to be exceedingly high in proteins, vitamins, minerals and fat-soluble factors. In cranial and dental development contrasts are striking between primitive individuals and their modern counterparts living on “civilized” foods. Dr. Price noted changes in pattern–elongated facial structure, deformed dental arch and various other malformations. Well established racial patterns changed with the introduction of refined commercial foods; increasing impairments were observed in succeeding generations. The importance of nutrition during pregnancy has long been recognized, but Dr. Price’s investigations showed that primitives understood and practiced preconception nutritional programs for both parents. Many tribes required a period of pre-marital nutrition and children were spaced to permit the mother to maintain full health and strength–thus fostering offspring of physical excellence. Foods of special value were rationed among the pregnant and lactating women, as well as the maturing boys and girls in preparation for future parenthood. These primitives, with their fine bodies, homogeneous reproduction, emotional stability and freedom from degenerative ills, stand forth in sharp contrast with those subsisting on the impoverished foods of civilization. This great contribution from a life’s work has been available for many years–and yet its full meaning is only beginning to be appreciated.

Untimely death robbed us of the amazing Mickey.^19,20 He saw man as an integral part of the earth. The material part of man consists of a dollar’s worth of chemicals which come from that thin layer of the earth’s surface called the soil–except for the oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and carbon which come from its atmosphere. The soil upon which all life depends is a thin layer of an average depth of eight inches over the face of the land. The earth beneath is as dead and sterile as the moon. That thin film is all that stands between man and extinction. Not only that–deficient soil produces deficient men, animals and plants. When this mere film disappears man disappears–”and the place thereof shall know him no more”. The Empire of Babylon was irrigated by the Tigris; the Tigris changed its course and Babylon became a desert. Vast stretches once forested and inhabited are now the Sahara.

In 1673 Archer²¹ made statements which are pertinent today. He spoke of the great damage which comes upon most people by not knowing about their own “constitutions of body; in ignorance, they eat and drink simply to please the palate”. “Many dig their graves with their teeth and cut off the thread of life sooner than is required by God or nature–besides living in sickness and disease”. He reasons that each one should study his own food and thus be his own doctor. He sees the order of evolution in medicine–first healing; later prevention of illness; preservation of health comes first, restoration of health next. According to the old proverb that every man is a fool–or a physician–at forty, each should study “the friendly agreement or antipathy of food to his own body; and know the nature of all foods”. Man is to be pitied who knows not the nature of what he eats. “Negligence in so necessary a knowledge has occasioned much sickness to many, and death to not a few”.

From the time of Hippocrates until 1830, as Elveljem²² states, it was assumed that all foods supplied only a single universal “nutrient”. It was in 1830 that Prout analyzed food into fats, carbohydrates and proteins; and it was not until 1906 that Gowland Hopkins called attention to a “special factor,” to which Casimir Funk gave the name “vitamin” in 1911.

The otolaryngologist or the dentist has unusual opportunities to detect evidences of nutritional deficiency in the course of routine inspections. In emphasizing this, Mann²³ lists those most frequently found. Glossitis is perhaps the most important. Patients frequently complain of burning, soreness and ulcers of the tongue and inability to tolerate hot, spicy foods. Red, hypertrophied papillae at the tip and sides of a swollen “pie-crust” tongue suggest early pellagra. If the tongue is slick and “gelatinous” in appearance it suggests more chronic pellagra, a “B₂” deficiency or an anemia. Glossitis is a cardinal sign of danger although it does not tell what specific trouble is present. Almost always nutritional deficiencies coexist; it is rare to find only a single deficiency. The color and tissue tone of the mucous membrane is also an important indicator. An oral mucosa which is fiery red, but not swollen or easily bleeding, indicates early pellagra. In chronic pellagra the mucosa is dark red and pyorrhea is frequent. In scurvy the gums are dark red, spongy and bleed easily. Fissures at the angle of the mouth suggest “B₂” deficiency. Such lesions start as pale areas, usually bilateral and symmetrical. The angles are progressively eroded and macerated until a triangular, wet, “angry-looking” lesion results.

In the Birmingham Clinic 1102 infants and children with uncomplicated deficiency diseases were studied by Spies, Ewing and Mann.²¹ The mothers of many of these children had deficiency diseases–more pronounced during pregnancy and lactation. It seems probable that some of the infants began to develop deficiency disease in utero. In these infants and children a period of poor general health preceded the appearance of lesions of pellagra, beri-beri or riboflavin deficiency. A study of 200 of these cases showed that characteristic lesions disappeared promptly on giving the appropriate synthetic vitamin. The promptness of response in many was startling. An example–12 months old boy; his mother “got down to skin and bones”, diarrhoea and sore mouth during the last two months of pregnancy; had always preferred carbohydrate food; in the two years preceding this child’s birth (the youngest of seven) the family had had no milk, family diet being cornmeal, grits, dry beans and salt pork. This baby was breast-fed and, since mother’s milk supply was scanty, when he was three months old she began giving him grits and cornbread soaked in water. A week before admission to hospital diarrhoea started; emaciated, dehydrated and acutely ill. Urine showed no nicotinic acid. First two days he received 125 mg. of niacinamide daily in divided doses. At the end of 24 hours diarrhoea had decreased; in 48 hours it had ceased, appetite returned and he received liberal foods suitable to his age; discharged on the fifth hospital day. Niacinamide was continued for a month; at home his food remained poor but he ate more than prior to this illness. He continued gaining for eight months when the weight leveled off. This is a sample of the experience in these 200 cases. It should be noted that the therapeutic effects did not manifest themselves so quickly in the mothers as in the children.

To determine the effects of heat-treated foods upon growth and development, Pottenger²⁵ conducted experiments for ten years, utilizing nine hundred cats of which records were completed on six hundred. His attention was directed to the need for such studies by the mortality among cats which had been fed cooked meats. These cats withstood operations poorly despite good surgical technic. In time. more cats were available than could be fed on scraps from the kitchen; so raw meat scraps were purchased–including muscle, bone and viscera. This raw meat was fed to a similar lot of cats, and within a very short time these survived surgery; they were healthier and their offspring more vigorous. This contrast was so striking that systematic feeding experiments were undertaken. Careful clinical notes were kept; in the case of death, autopsy was performed, cataloguing gross and microscopic findings; calcium and phosphorus determinations were made; and at the end of ten years all remaining animals were autopsied. In the first experiments one group received raw meats ⅔, raw milk ⅓ and cod liver oil; another group received cooked meats ⅔, raw milk ⅓ and cod liver oil. Those receiving raw meat reproduced normally, litters averaged five, lactation was normal, offspring were normal. Cats receiving cooked meat reproduced a heterogenous lot, each kitten differing from his litter-mates; abortion was common–about 25 per cent in the first generation, up to 70 per cent in the second generation; dystocia and death in labor were frequent; kitten mortality was high, often due to failure of lactation; vermin and intestinal infestations were frequent. Of the cats on cooked meats, many showed “bones as soft as rubber”. Kittens of the third generation all died within six months, thereby terminating the strain. Another group of cats, first fed on raw meat, were switched to cooked meat for six months and then returned to raw meat. Kittens from this group showed some stigmata although mothers appeared to be in good health. Subsequent generations improved as long as they received raw meat. Their resistance to disease, greatly diminished on cooked meat, gradually increased upon return to raw meat. Cats fed on raw meat maintained normal malar and orbital arches, nasal structures, dental arches and dentition. Adult cats on cooked meat began to show abnormal conditions in the mouth in from 3 to 6 months–gingivitis, paradentosis, loss of teeth–but no caries. Others fed on raw milk were compared with those fed on pasteurized, evaporated and sweetened condensed milk. Those on raw meat flourished; those on the altered milks fared badly. In brief, it appears that raw meat and milk are better for cats than altered meat and milk.

Vitamins

A review by Evans²⁶ of the recently established and still unknown components of the B₂ Complex describes two new factors–Pteroylglutamic Acid (PGA) and B₁₂. PGA has already given promise of value in nutritional macrocytic anemia; and in conjunction with B₁₂, in sprue. Isolated only recently, B₁₂ appears of value in Addisonian pernicious anemia. It is the most powerful therapeutic agent known; one millionth of a gram provokes hematologic response in man. Seven other members of the B₂ Complex have already been established.

Two patients had pernicious anemia, two had nutritional macrocytic anemia, one had non-tropical sprue. After intramuscular injections of B₁₂ Spies, Lopez and Milanes²⁷ observed positive hematologic response in the two cases of pernicious anemia; also in the two cases of nutritional macrocytic anemia and in the case of non-tropical sprue. All cases showed clinical improvement, including well-being, alertness, general strength and vigor, and relief of soreness and burning of mouth and tongue.

The plasma level of “C” and the prothrombin time were studied in one hundred and four cases of epistaxis by Neivert, Engelberg and Pirk.²⁸ Only eleven showed normal “C” and prothrombin time. The level of “C” was subnormal in 68; of these, 35 also showed subnormal prothrombin time. In 25 the “C” level was normal but the prothrombin time was subnormal. Vitamin therapy was applied in 62 of the 93 who were deficient in “C”, in prothrombin time, or in both. The clinical response could be determined only in 36, of whom 27 were improved–suggesting that “C” as well as “K” has a place in the management of nasal hemorrhage.

Although hemorrhages due to prothrombin deficiency can usually be adequately controlled by “K”, Butt, Magath and Seldon²⁹ present evidence that such benefit does not occur in patients with severe liver damage.

Minerals

It is too early to know what place isotopes may come to occupy in medicine. It is not too early, however, to be aware of difficulties and dangers which beset the way. Light upon this subject is shed by studies of plants, bringing out the remarkable advantages and also disadvantages. It is obvious that isotopes are new and powerful tools, permitting investigations not previously possible. Russell³⁰ shows how isotopes are used in studying plant growth–especially how plants absorb and utilize the nutrients obtained from soil. Isotopes act as “tracers”–a word which explains exactly their use in biologic research. They are used as indicators to show the behavior of normal elements; for example, if the biologist is working with radioactive phosphorus it is in order to investigate normal phosphorus. The Geiger counter is so sensitive that if one ounce of radioactive phosphorus were spread uniformly over the entire surface of the earth, it would be possible to check whether the correct amount had been placed on every square inch. Isotopes can be detected by both the ear and the eye. Photographic plates are also sensitive and provide visual details as to the tracer’s distribution. It is possible to measure the amount of nutrient absorbed in a few minutes by the tip of a root less than one-fourth inch long. The use of tracers is in its infancy; the first explorer’s map of any region is never so precise as those of later observers. Careful thought must be given to possible damage. The isotope may affect the growth of the plant. To make matters worse, the plant may still appear healthy and yet be damaged. The isotope is a new tool, fascinating, of great potential value, but not without serious dangers.

With atomic energy man can create elements at will for use in medicine, as expressed by Lawrence.³¹ Ordinary elements can be made radioactive–a good example is in the use of iodine in thyroid cancer. A new carbon has been produced–At.Wt.14 instead of 12; its course can be traced in the living body of plant, animal and man. We may learn why chlorophyll is the only agent in nature that can harness energy from the sun for creating the food on which we live. Carbon 14 may enable us to create food from simple substances, just as the plant does. Man, in fact, stands at the gateway of a new world–provided of course he does not commit suicide inadvertently.

In the light of recent advances Deuel³² considers that the attitude toward the importance of fats should be changed. They are no longer to be considered as “optional”, but rather as required food. In studies of the growth of rats it appeared that diets containing 20-30 per cent fat gave optimal results. It was also found that rats on high-fat intake could accomplish a greater amount of work than those on low-fat intake. The development of the isotope technic has made it possible to follow the various intermediates of fatty acid oxidation through their several pathways.

Calcium is required by animal and human bodies in larger percentage than any other element; as Albrecht³³ expresses it calcium heads the list of strictly soil-borne elements required in the nourishment of living tissues. As rocks are broken down to form soil there is an increase of active calcium. When heavy rainfall occurs and the temperature rises there is calcium depletion. Lower forms of life–like microbes, and higher forms–like plants and animals, all are part of this calcium picture. The distributions of the different plants and animals take their patterns very much according to the calcium supply.

References Cited:

1. Harding, J. C. Almy, D.D.S.: Lecture before Midwinter Convention, Research Study Club. Los Angeles, January 1950.
2. Lee, Royal, D.D.S.: Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
3. Ladd, E. F., and Stallings, R. E.: “Bleaching of Flour”. North Dakota Agricultural College, Government Station Bulletin, No. 72. Nov. 1906.
4. Lee, Royal, D.D.S.: Foundation for Nutritional Research. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 1947.
5. Harding, J. C. Almy, D.D.S.: Editorial. Amer. Acad. Applied Nutrition. Autumn 1948, p. 177.
6. Hunnicutt, Leland G.: “The Effects of Zinc Sulphate on the Olfactory Mucous Membrane in Dogs and Monkeys”. Transactions. 27th Annual Meeting. Pac. Coast Oto-Ophthalmological Soc.
7. Hunnicutt, Leland G.: “The Effect of Drugs on the Nasal Mucous Membrane”. Transactions, 29th Annual Meeting. Pac. Coast Oto-Ophthalmological Soc.
8. Bower, Albert G.: “A Concept of Poliomyelitis”. Northwest Medicine. February, March and April 1950.
9. Bromfield, Louis: Out of the Earth. Harper and Bros., New York.
10. Magazine–Prevention. Rodale Press, Emmaus, Pa. June 1950. pp. 2-80.
11. O. V.: “The Etiology of Epidemie Poliomyelitis and Its Possible Relation to Beri-beri”. Med. Record, June 17, 1911.
12. Lee, Royal, D.D.S.: Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research. Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
13. Helms, Karen: “Acute Anterior Poliomyelitis and Vitamin B Deficiency”. Jour of Australia, Vol 1–28th year, pp. 717-722.
14. McCormick, Wm. J.: “Poliomyelitis. Infectious or Metabolic”. Pediatrics, Vol. 67, No. 2, Feb. 1950.
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16. Rasmussen, A. F., Jr.; Waisman. H. A.; Elvehjem, C. A.; and Clark, P. F.: “Influence of the Level of Thiamine Intake on the Susceptibility of Mice to Poliomyelitis Virus”. Infect. Dis., Vol. 74, 1944, pp. 41-47.
17. Schneider, H. A.: “Nutrition and Resistance to Infection”. Book, Vitamins and Hormones. Academic Press, New York, pp. 35-70.
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21. Archer, John: Every Man His Own Doctor. Published by the author. London, 1673.
22. Elvehjem, C. A.: “Recent Progress in Nutrition and Its Relation to Drug Therapy”. A.M.A. April 3, 1948, Vol. 136, p. 14.
23. Mann, Arvin W., D.D.S.: Lecture before So. Calif. Dental Assn., Los Angeles, April 1948.
24. Spies, Tom D.; Ewing, G. D.; and Mann, A. W.: “Effect of Synthetic Niacinamide, Synthetic Thiamine and Synthetic Riboflavin on Infants and Young Children with Deficiency Diseases”. Archives of Pediatrics, 61, 517-531, October 1944.
25. Pottenger, Francis M.: “The Effect of Heat-Processed Foods and Metabolized Vitamin D Milk on the Dentofacial Structures of Experimental Animals”. American Journal of Orthodontics and Oral Surgery, Vol. 32, No. 8, pp. 467-485, August 1946.
26. Evans, Herbert M.: “The Recently Established and Still Unknown Components of Vitamin B.” Presented at Midwinter Convention of Research Study Club, Los Angeles, Jan. 1949.
27. Spies, T. D.; Lopez, C. G., and Milanes, F.: “Observations on Hemapoietic Response of Persons with Tropical Sprue to Vitamin B”. Southern Medical Journal, June 1948, 41:p. 523.
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Editor’s note: Since the era in which this article was written, society’s understanding of respectful terminology when referring to ethnic and cultural groups has evolved, and some readers may be offended by references to “primitive” people and other out-of-date terminology. However, this article has been archived as a historical document, and so we have chosen to use the authors’ exact words in the interest of authenticity.  No disrespect to any cultural or ethnic group is intended.