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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1163 



the food available and underestimates of the 

 food required by women who took up the 

 work of men and underestimates of the food 

 required during adolescence. The American 

 investigations of Du Bois and of Gephart, 

 which demonstrated the increased food re- 

 quirement of growing boys, were not there 

 available, and the increase in the rations 

 for such children was not made in Germany 

 or in Belgium until October, 1916. 



It was unfortunate that the carrying out 

 of the recommendations of the Eltzbacher 

 Commission was left to politicians, farm- 

 ers and middlemen. The scientists of the 

 country were not represented and the re- 

 sult was chaos. 



Dr. Alonzo B. Taylor has recently pub- 

 lished a very complete account regarding 

 the food supply of blockaded Germany. 

 He points out the fact that, in spite of all 

 exhortations and of all regulations, it is the 

 farmer's wife who gets the egg. 



In a pamphlet published in June, 1916, 

 Eubner described how the prices of food- 

 stuffs had been enormously increased by the 

 middlemen. The price of meat and of eggs 

 doubled in a month and this happened, of 

 course, without any regard to the cost of 

 production. Eubner frankly states that 

 the lust for gain produced conditions which 

 had no regard to the political conditions of 

 the country and that the efforts to control 

 prices since August, 1914, had been with- 

 out results. Bread in Germany was ra- 

 tioned and only half the quantity usually 

 taken in peace time was allotted. This rep- 

 resented the omission of twenty per cent, of 

 the usual ration. Meat and milk were 

 scarce and expensive and in some cities 

 were unobtainable. Green vegetables, as a 

 source of nourishment, were as expensive as 

 meat, and potatoes were also scarce. Con- 

 ditions were such that in some cities the in- 

 habitants received only a third of the usual 

 food supply. The farmer continued to live 

 as had been his wont, whereas the urban 



dweller suffered. Families dependent upon 

 the earnings of a physician, for example, 

 suffered acutely not only through the with- 

 drawal of the income of the man who was 

 in the army, but also from the high food 

 prices. The hand of the food dictator was 

 restrained on account of a thousand ob- 

 stacles put in his way through faults in- 

 herent in human character. 



It may appear a contradiction of terms to 

 hear in the same breath that there is a 

 shortage of food in Germany and yet that 

 the people are not starving. This is due to 

 the fact that in extreme cases of under- 

 nutrition it is possible to reduce the re- 

 quirement of food to only forty per cent, 

 of its former level. The under-nourished 

 and emaciated may, therefore, live on much 

 less food than those who are well fed and 

 are up to normal weight. 



The popular idea that "most people eat 

 too much," which one hears expressed in 

 common table talk, is not true. People who 

 do not change in weight eat just enough to 

 maintain the condition in which they have 

 established themselves. They may, how- 

 ever, lose their surplus fatty tissue by re- 

 stricting their diet. 



Another popular formula which has been 

 elevated to the height of dogma is, "it is 

 not what you eat but what you digest that 

 is of importance." Since the normal per- 

 son very completely digests all the common 

 food-stuffs, there is little to concern one in 

 this saying. Repeated ignorantly from 

 mouth to mouth, such a remark, even 

 though true, comes to cloak many dietetic 

 absurdities. 



An English scientific commission, of 

 which Gowland Hopkins, Noel Baton and 

 others were members, published on Feb- 

 ruary 1 of this year a report of British 

 food conditions. They found that during 

 the five years preceding the war the aver- 

 age annual consumption of food in Great 

 Britain amounted to the equivalent of 51 



