CALCIUM DEFICIENCIES: THEIR TREATMENT BY PARATHYROID
Authors: W. R. Grove, H. W. C. Vines
Journal: BMJ (1922)

TMripCAJBRIS 791I_ --IA Or .-l 9people for acid and highly favoured foods.Another reason wlhy modern dietetic conceptions Were often wrong was because, until recentlv, tlhere lhad not been a reasonable standard for lhealtlh.A child was found, for example, not only to like cereals and sugars, but apparently to flourish on tllem, growing fat and contented and letlhargic, and the tendency was to regard weight as the criterion of health.The trouble was that the state of under-nutrition was not commonly appreciated.Malnutrition was understood wlhen the clhild wasted away or developed tuberculosis, but more ought to be known about the state of under-nutrition before any extreme manifestations made tlleir appearance.Experimental Work on Foodr.The lecturer went on to detail some experiments on animals in regard to the effect of carbohydrates on growth, and pointed out that more activity was got by increasiug the fat in tlle diet than by increasing the carbohydrates.Foods could be divided into two large groups: the first consisted of products sucll as milk, butter, cream, clheese, eggs, and green vegetables, like cabbage and lettuce the other was made up of cereals (vlleat, rice, oatmeal, maize, and all the preparcd products nmade up of such thliins), vegetable mar- ,arine, lard, meat (including pork), flso sugar, jam, potatoes, and tea, coffee, and cocoa.Of the first group the average man really got very little.An autlhoritative estimate slhowed that-the amount of milk consumed pCr diem (including milk products) was equal only to a quarter of a pint a liead of the population.Cheese was ratlher popular, but green vegetables were -not commonly favoured, and hiis experience in hospital Wvas that it was difficult to get patients to eat tllem at all.The second group of foods lie lhad just catalogued was wrona in several respects; it lacked sodium, chlorine, calcium, anti- fcorbutic vitamin, aind if the fat of beef and mutton were taken-awvay and most people did leave suclh fat on tljeir plates-tle diet was also lacking in fat-soluble vitamin.The foods wlichl were richl in calcium and fat-soluLble vitamin were egg)-yolk, cow's milk, humuan milk, and green vege- tables; foods poor in tllis respect were wlhite bread, rice (polislhed), potatoes, margarine, sugar, jam, and loan meat.He mentioned that from-1912 to 1917 tlle cases of xCroph- thalmia in Copenlhagen -increased in number steadily and considerably, but as soon as the Danisl Governinent in 1917 prevented-tlle export of butter, tllereby making it available for homne consumptioD, so tllat there was a suflicient quantity for each person, the wlhole trouble entirely disappeared.Just as in nature tlis fat-soluble vitamin was associated.with calciutm, so in the-body th-ere was-experimental evidence for believing that calcium and sometlhing at any rate closely rescmbling fat-soluble vitamin worked in harmony-that, in fact, the body could not retain calciutm, however muclh of it tllere might be in the food, if it did not have at the same time some of this vitamin.The lecturer next described a basal diet for certain experi-'6ients on the production of rickets in dogs.The diet con- sisted of separated milk, white bread, yeast, orange juice, lean meat, and sodium chloride.If for the fat such a thinjg as linseed oil were used, rickets was produced; if cod-liver oil were used, there was no rickets.He lhad not been able definitely to affirm tlhat this antirachitic vitamin-was actually tlle fat-s,oluble, but it aJmost certainly was.Fats might be divided from the point of view of antirachitic action as follows:Good.