Medicine: Least for Life

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Last summer thousands of Chinese died from starvation in the flooded Yellow River valley. In besieged Madrid the number of persons reported dying from starvation every week has recently risen to 2,000. Faced by these grim facts, a subcommittee of the League of Nations' Technical Commission on Nutrition, headed by Britain's famed Sir Edward Mellanby, met in August to find out exactly how much a man must eat in order to stay alive. Last week the Lancet printed the nutritionists' report. The report suggested a basic minimum diet for war-torn countries which would tickle no palates and fill no stomachs but would maintain life for an indefinite period of time, and prevent such serious deficiency diseases as scurvy, pellagra, anemia, rickets.

Suggested for adults: 18 ounces (about one loaf) of whole wheat a day, for carbo-lydrates; two-fifths of an ounce of salt, tor maintaining the water balance in body tissues; the same quantity of brewers' yeast, for vitamin B; one-twelfth of an ounce of cod-liver oil, for vitamin A; half a lemon twice weekly, for vitamin C. If two ounces of dried skim-milk powder are available, brewers' yeast can be omitted. Other corrections: growing children need more cod-liver oil and skim-milk powder than adults, but less salt. If lemons or oranges are not available, the committee suggests that scurvy can be avoided by steeping any nonpoisonous green leaves in boiling water and making tea. Greatest lack in the diet is fat. For this less important element, the committee could offer only the lame suggestion that "fat [should be added] in such quantities as are available," trusted that famished civilians would scramble for peanuts, olives, soybeans or fatty fish.