voegtlin: role of vitamines in nutrition 587 



tion, and preservation the development of our modern industrial 

 life would have been utterly impossible, as it is a very essential 

 thing that people should be properly fed. The pertinent ques- 

 tion arises: Have these changes in our diet affected its nutritive 

 value favorably or unfavorably? It is perfectly evident that 

 such a question is not answered without a great deal of thorough 

 investigation. All I can say today is that it seems that the diet 

 of a certain proportion of the population may have been mate- 

 rially improved in recent years, leading to a greater variety of 

 dietary components. On the other hand, I firmly believe, as 

 a result of personal observations in a limited portion of the 

 South, that the diet of some Southern people has markedly 

 decreased in nutritive value from the point of view of its vi- 

 tamine content. This is especially true of people living under 

 rather poor economic conditions. I observed that the poorer 

 people usually were unable to obtain the more expensive foods 

 like beef, or other fresh meat, eggs, and milk, foods which are 

 relatively rich in vitamines. Their diet was largely composed 

 of cereal products, pork fat, carbohydrates in the form of molasses 

 or corn syrup, and a few canned products. During the summer, 

 and less so in the winter, fresh vegetables also were procured, 

 some from their own gardens. The following table is an example 

 of the yearly food supply of a family of cotton mill workers in 

 Spartanburg County, South Carolina. 



This dietary record is representative of a fairly large percent- 

 age of the cotton mill workers of this section of the South. It 

 should be emphasized that the wheat flour which is used by these 

 people is highly milled (patent) and forms perhaps the most 

 important staple article of the diet. The diet as a whole must 

 be considered as deficient in antineuritic vitamines, with the 

 exception of the beans, which this family raised in their garden. 

 During the winter time the cereal products, namely, wheat flour, 

 corn meal, and grits, and pork fat (fatback) form the bulk of the 

 diet. It is evident, therefore, that under these conditions it is 

 important that the vitamine content of the cereal products should 

 be sufficient, in order to prevent the consumption of a deficient 

 diet. From the point of view of public health it is of considerable 



