The object of this account of the effects of faulty diets which fall short of meeting the nutritive needs of the body only to minor degrees, and in many cases in respect to factors which are not primarily concerned with the production of the "deficiency" diseases, is to emphasize the importance of taking regularly, a diet which approximates closely the optimum with respect to every component. Whenever a diet, which deviates much from the optimum in its constitution with respect to any of its parts, is adhered to for any considerable period, it leaves its mark upon the organism, and causes its deterioration at a rate faster than would result under more favorable conditions.

411. Optimal Physical Development And The Prevention Of Illness, The Present-Day Objective

Until recently the medical profession was interested exclusively in the sick. The well baby, the well child or the well adult, were entirely neglected. Now the idea is gaining ground that it is more important to keep a person well than to cure an illness after it has developed. This is the great ideal of preventive medicine. But just as in the past the baby was regarded as well until midnight wails, prostration, or a terrifying rash or eruption made attention to its condition imperative, so to-day physicians, health officials and the public itself, are in great measure ignoring all except the most spectacular and compelling alarms in health matters. Epidemics have forced the chlorination of water supplies and the enforcement of quarantine. The effects of unwise selection of food can confidently be asserted to exercise a greater debilitating effect upon an individual than does in many cases an attack of an acute infection in a well nourished one. Yet the effects of faulty nutrition exhibited by more than half the people around us attract little or no attention.