The Ypsilanti daily press. (Ypsilanti, Mich.) 1928-1962, 1944-04-01

ton. But the illogic Of the experts
and Of the laity take slightly diff
terent forms.
The vitAminS were a godsend TO
the experts. Because the distin-
gushing sign Of an expert is that
he works in a laboratory. And the
experts can take experimental
rats in a laboratory and by Jug
Cling the vitamlns in their diet
they can produce hairless rats, and
scabby rats, and blind rats, and
paralyzed rats, and neurasthenic
rats, and nearly anything in the
way Of rats. And having reduced
the rats to a hairless, blind, para
lyzed state of physical, moral and
mental decay they could restore
them to rosy health by restoring
the vitamins.
The rat being a scavenger and
having adapted itself TO a mixed
diet was a perfect laboratory an
imal for the vitaminists. Those
old reliable experimental animals,
the guinea pig and rabbit, having
learned to subsist on lettuce, didn't
exhibit any physiologic fireworks
at all under vitamin experiments.
They probably have learned to
manufacture vitamins themselves
in their own very abundant in
testineS. So the vitamin experts
became guilty Of the fallacy
known in logic as false analogy
and concluded that men were like
rats and Of a right ought to ex-
hibit all the vitamin responses Of
the rat. Only trouble is they don't.
The favorite vitamin experts
research on man has been TO ex-
anime a group-say Of factory
workers-and find their diets de-
ficient in vitamins and their blood
concentration of vitamins low and
then announce that they are suf-
fering from vitamin deficiency. A
little difficulty was encountered
when it was found the workers
did not have any of the classical
and proved syndromes Of vitamin
defciency-night-bli blindness of vi
tamin A; neuritis of Vitamin B;
pellagra, scurvy of Vitamin c, etc.
so the experts asked the workers
some leading questions and found
they had fatigue, and poor pro-
duction, and lack of pep, and loss
of appetite, and said-"These are
the results of vitamin deficiency"
when any clinician could tell
them that such symptoms could
come from any one of a thousand
things ranging from domestic diff
ficulties to frustrated ambition,
to union squabbles, to hanging
around the juke box jives.
Now the laymen's wanderings
from truth on the subject of the
vitamins come from the fallacy
known in logic as as amphibology.
In short, emotional thinking!
Emotional Word
VitamiD is very emotional word.
1t is too bad the first name pro-
posed for these substances "acces-
sorry food factors" was not re-
tanned. II is Unconditional. But vi
tamins suggests vitality. If you
haven't got vitality you need vi
tamins. So if you lack pep, or APP
petite, or sleep poorly, or IL your
boy friend has cooled off, the ma
tural answer is vitamins and you
go down and squander some hard
earned dough on vitamins for vi
tally.
Besides, the layman doesn't I'M
derstand that the diagnosis Of vi
tamin deficiency depends on def
mite signs, not vague symptoms.
There are blood tests for the pres
ence or deficiency of vitamins in
your body, and they should be used
TO decide whether the vitamins are
needed. But who would wait for
that when the get-health-quick
lure beckons from any vitamin
bar!