HEALTH AND POPULATION 575 



above. In Sierra Leone Dr. E. J. Wright (1930 and 1936) has 

 given special attention to avitaminosis among the local peoples. 

 From the Sudan there comes a striking instance of what appears 

 to be a direct deficiency disease among a people whose staple food 

 is millet, as recorded by N. L. Corkill (1934). Some medical 

 authorities have expressed the opinion that it is incorrect to call 

 the disease in question pellagra, but it must certainly result from 

 malnutrition. In Tanganyika an administrative officer, R. C. 

 Jerrard (1936), has put together some data on customary foods 

 in a pamphlet on the tribes of the territory. 



In the Union of South Africa the nutrition of native races 

 is also arousing interest, and F. W. Fox (1934 and 1936), of 

 Johannesburg University, has already discussed some aspects of 

 the question and has amassed a large collection of native food 

 materials, many of which have been analysed. Such work is, of 

 course, an essential preliminary to detailed diet surveys, and Fox 

 (1934) has laid down a scheme for a general nutritional survey of 

 the Union. 



In the Belgian Congo it appears that little direct work on the 

 food and nutrition of natives in rural areas has yet been attempted, 

 but in mining regions the subject has been studied in some detail 

 with a view to preparing the most suitable dietaries for labourers. 

 Much research on the different food materials in use through- 

 out the Congo has been done through the agency of laboratories 

 at Tervueren near Brussels, attached to the Congo Museum, and 

 some of the results are displayed in the public galleries of that 

 museum. In the French African colonies nutritional work is 

 somewhat dispersed and special research has not yet been 

 attempted in the field. A general protein deficiency in the 

 diet of non-pastoral peoples is fully recognized, however, and 

 a movement is afoot to produce dried meat and fish as articles 

 of internal trade in order to make good this lack. A valuable 

 book on the food of native races in all the French colonial 

 dependencies has been written by a group of scientists, includ- 

 ing Professor Labouret and Dr. Sorel (Hardy and Richct 



1933)- 



It is perhaps a little surprising that the better-known deficiency 

 diseases, such as beri-beri and rickets, are not very serious in 



