18 PHYSIOLOGY AND NATIONAL NEEDS 



butter or margarine, but, provided you like or 

 can get to like the flavour, it does no harm ; 

 lanoline, on the other hand, although it contains 

 nothing actually poisonous, is entirely useless as 

 a food, being quite indigestible. 



I have already mentioned that it has been one 

 of my incidental duties to read a good deal of 

 German medical literature during the past few 

 years, and in that country the food problem has 

 been more acute than it has been with us. One 

 hears, or at any rate heard in the past, a good deal 

 of admiration for German methods, but, so far as 

 one can judge, they do not seem to have mobilised 

 physiological science in the same way as has been 

 done in this country through the Food Committee 

 of the Eoyal Society. It would be possible to 

 give many examples of want of scientific advice 

 which the food controllers of Germany suffered 

 from, but one which is typical will suffice. Munich 

 is a town in which the great nutrition school 

 flourished under the leadership of Voit about half 

 a century ago, and if one looks to the food con- 

 troller's regulations for the feeding of the children 

 of Munich it is enough to have made Voit turn in 

 his grave. The errors were pointed out in the 

 medical journals of that city, and one does not 

 know whether this fell upon deaf ears or not, but 

 even if the scientific advice were taken, a good 

 deal of mischief had already been done and it was 



