The astonishing effects which the food shortage experienced during the war exercised on national health are gradually being appreciated. The longer' they are studied the more clear does* it be-; come that disco: is an ever-present foe, always ready to strike if the. circumstances should prove favourable. No single disease affords a more convincing example; of this truth than tuberculosis. From 1850 there has been witnessed a steady and marked declension lin the number of cases, and the {toll of death has been cut in half. yet in the years 1916 and 1917 there was a sharp relapse. So Isoen as our foed became—insuffilenient in quality the enemy renew-. fed his assault. What were the food elements which, at that time. we lacked and in the absence' which tuberculosis was able to increase the number of its victims? We are unfortunately without full knowledge, though it has been suggested that they were vitamins. and also that they were fats of various kinds. Certainly, the control exercised with regard "to milk and butter was very stringent in the war years.. In any case, the subject is one which deserves further study. We are beginning to understand that errors of diet are a source of national as well as of individual weakness. In the war they were unavoidable, but now there is little excuse for their continuance. Yet, as Sir Malcolm Morris points out vast numbers of women are to-day underfed or wrongly fed. They are laying up for themselves, and possibly also for their children, a heritage of trouble The absence of "stamina'"'
Times."
the opportunity of disease.—''The
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.