8 PHYSIOLOGY AND NATIONAL NEEDS 



side of the Atlantic in which the use of alcohol is 

 to be entirely prohibited. I might extend my 

 allusions to committees of like nature, but I will 

 mention only one more and it is by no means the 

 least important. I mean the Food (War) Com- 

 mittee of the Royal Society. We hear a good deal 

 now the expression " the silent navy," and an 

 excellent expression it is. One lesson taught us by 

 the recent war, aided by censors of various kinds, 

 is to imitate the navy in holding our tongues. So 

 successfully has the scientific world learnt and 

 practised this lesson that I doubt whether the 

 Eoyal Society Committee has ever been heard of 

 by the majority of the public. All have heard of 

 the Ministry of Food and have obeyed its edicts, 

 but never knew that all the important decrees of 

 the Ministry were preceded by consultations with 

 the Food Committee of the Koyal Society. 



Food is a question which appeals to everybody, 

 and although the war is over, and restrictions are 

 being relaxed every day, a good many food prob- 

 lems remain with us, so that the national interest 

 in the question is still keen. 



In the early days of food control there was a 

 tendency to pooh-pooh the scientific aspect of the 

 question : these were the days when mistakes 

 occurred, for example, the use of rhubarb leaves. 

 Things did not run smoothly until the Ministry 

 made the remarkable discovery that people who 



