360 ISIDOR GREENWALD 



limited agriculture to develop. It is, perhaps, in North America that one 

 can see most clearly how the nature of the available supply affected the 

 food habits of the natives. The Indians of the plains were essentially 

 hunters and lived largely on the results of the chase. In the east, agricul- 

 ture was fairly well established, among some tribes at least, and maize, 

 beans, pumpkins and other plants constituted a very considerable part 

 of the diet. But; it was in what is now the southwestern part of the United 

 States and in Mexico that the greatest progress in agriculture occurred 

 and it was there that the highest civilization developed. In contrast with 

 the tribes of these sections, all of whom were fairly well fed, we find 

 the stunted and emaciated Indians of the northern Rocky Mountains, 

 denied both the chase of the buffalo and -the cultivation of maize. 



It was in the Old World that animals susceptible of domestication, es- 

 pecially those suited for a nomadic life, were most numerous and it was 

 there that pastoral civilization reached its fullest development. Cereals 

 and legumes were also abundant and furnished the basis for a more 

 settled life. It was no longer necessary for so much time to be given 

 to the obtaining of food ; more could be devoted to other wants, the satis- 

 faction of which is the characteristic of civilization. 



Crop Failures and Famine. All through the ages, such margin as 

 separated man from an actual food shortage has been very narrow. Famine 

 has always been a very present menace, as the liturgies of the churches 

 abundantly testify. The yield of the staple foods, from year to year, 

 is very uncertain even at this time. With a population dependent upon 

 closely neighboring sources of supply, any failure of the accustomed yield 

 means scarcity and even starvation. It was only with the development 

 of transportation, particularly in the latter part of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, that a fairly regular food supply could be assured to most of man- 

 kind. Even then, famine was not unknown in Russia, China and India. 

 With the breakdown of commerce and transportation and the withdrawal 

 of large areas of land and of millions of men from food production as a 

 result of the world war, famine has reappeared in regions from which we 

 had once believed it banished. 



Even in so large and fertile country as our own and one so well pro- 

 vided with railroads and other means of communication, the failure of a 

 staple crop may involve, if not deprivation of sufficient food energy, a fail- 

 ure to secure sufficient of the less well-recognized dietary constituents. To 

 quote from Hess(e) (1920) : "It is important for us to realize that we are 

 still dependent on the annual crops for our protection from scurvy; in 

 other words, the world is leading a hand to mouth existence in regard to 

 its quota of antiscorbutic food. The truth of this condition has been real- 

 ized for Ireland, sadly illustrated by numerous epidemics, notably the great 

 epidemic of 1847 reported by Curran. It was demonstrated by the out- 

 breaks of scurvy in Norway in 1904 and 1912 and was brought to the atten- 



