IN RELATION TO THE WAR. 499 



American dietaries, both urban and rural, are more likely to be 

 deficient in calcium than in any other individual element because 

 they tend to consist too largely of the products of seeds together 

 with meats, fats, and sugar with too small a proportion of milk and 

 vegetables. 



All meats are very poor in calcium ; purified fats and sugar are 

 practically devoid of it. On the other hand milk, eggs and green 

 vegetables are rich in calcium ; other vegetables and fruits contain 

 it in fairly hberal amounts. Hence decreased consumption of meats, 

 fats and sugar, with increased use of milk, eggs, vegetables and 

 fruit will constitute an important improvement in the typical Amer- 

 ican dietary. 



Detailed study of the data of the 250 typical American dietaries 

 already mentioned shows plainly that as the relative expenditure for 

 meats, fats, and sugar decreases and that for perishable foods in- 

 creases the dietaries become more adequate and better balanced as 

 regards the various factors of food value which can be expressed 

 in quantitative terms — energy value, protein content, and amounts 

 and proportions of the various ash constituents or inorganic elements. 



So far as calcium and the other inorganic elements are them- 

 selves concerned, they might be supplied in the form of simple min- 

 eral substances such as calcium phosphate, but in human dietetics it 

 is more feasible to teach the use of familiar than of unfamiliar ar- 

 ticles, and by the use of sufficient milk and vegetables to provide a 

 liberal supply of calcium the diet is improved in other respects as 

 well. 



The larger use of such perishable foods as milk, vegetables and 

 fruit is beneficial in several directions which as yet are not suscept- 

 ible of quantitative measurement — such properties as the promotion 

 of growth, and the prevention of neuritis, scurvy and pellagra, 

 whether the latter be strictly nutritional diseases or not. Such 

 benefits are probably due in part to the unidentifi.ed essential sub- 

 stances " fat-soluble A " and " water-soluble B " both of which 

 occur abundantly in milk, eggs and many vegetables, and in part to 

 those chemical and physical properties of fruit, vegetables and milk 

 which are favorable to intestinal hygiene and so protect the body 

 from objectionable products of intestinal putrefaction. 



