Let us return to the problem of the health conditions among the people of the northern United States and its causes. We are told by Terman (10) that about fourteen million of the twenty million school children in the United States are handicapped by some kind of physical defect, and that not far from two million are suffering from a grave form of malnutrition. Ten million are said to have enough defective teeth to seriously interfere with health, and as many are infected with tuberculosis, and he estimates that two million will eventually die of this disease. One million are stated to be predisposed to some serious form of nervous disorder. That the conditions are fully as bad as these figures indicate is borne out by the results of medical examination of young men for the draft in the Great War. Why this condition in our boasted favorable climate for civilization, whereas the pastoral tribes of Asia, the nomads of the desert, and the peoples of the Balkan States have no such physical handicaps? It certainly behooves us to seek to discover the cause or causes which are responsible for this condition. Climate has had its opportunity and has not saved us from our unenviable physical and health standards. As a result of my many experimental observations, I have come to hold the view that animal experimentation, human geography and history, all point in an all but conclusive manner to the diet as the principal cause of our health troubles, in so far as these are not brought about by communicable diseases.

459. Changes In The Character Of The American Diet During Recent Decades

There have been in course of development during the last century, changes in the character of the diet of the greater portion of the inhabitants of the United States which were never suspected as of any moment from the standpoint of health until their significance was brought to light by laboratory investigations in nutrition during the last six years. Of these, probably the most important because so insidious, is the great extension of the consumption of cereal grains, and the changes in the process of preparing these for human food.