70 PHYSIOLOGY AND NATIONAL NEEDS 



but also of the antineuritic and fat-soluble acces- 

 sories. The artificially-fed child depends as a rule 

 on some form of cow's milk. Now cow's milk has been 

 found * to have such a low antiscorbutic value that 

 guinea-pigs, which are protected from scurvy by one 

 gram of cabbage daily, require as much as 100 cc. 

 of milk to keep them free from the disease. Further, 

 boiling or drying the milk undoubtedly diminishes 

 its antiscorbutic value, so that infants fed on 

 sterilised milk or dried milk can only be receiving 

 a very small supply of the antiscorbutic value. 

 Medical opinions vary as to the necessity for sup- 

 plementing a diet of boiled or dried milk with some 

 other source of antiscorbutic, and it is a fact that 

 pronounced scurvy is rarely seen as a consequence 

 of such a diet. It has, however, been pointed out 

 that many children show symptoms of what has 

 been termed latent and subacute scurvy. 2 These, 

 although not resulting in serious illness, neverthe- 

 less constitute a danger to the well-being of the 

 child and are at once relieved by the administration 

 of antiscorbutics. It is impossible at present to 

 say what may be the effect on the child's sub- 

 sequent development of a partial deficiency of anti- 

 scorbutic during infancy, but it is certainly to be 

 avoided if possible. It has recently been shown, 

 for example, 8 that profound changes in the teeth 



1 Chick, Hume and Skelton, Biochem. J., 1918, 12, 131. 



2 Hess and Fish, Amer. J. of Diseases of Children, 1914, 8, 385. 

 8 Zilva and Wells, Proc. Roy. Soc., 1919, B 90, 606. 



