not excepting war
casualties, were far below the prewar average.

The Chittenden standard now universally accepted, fixes the protein
intake at 10 per cent of the total ration. This leaves little room for
meat, and not a few authorities reduce the protein to a still lower
level.

For some years, McCollum of Johns Hopkins has been calling attention to
the evils of the "meat and bread" diet, which he declares to be about
the worst diet one can adopt, and adds, "We could entirely dispense with
meats without suffering any ill effects whatever."

Chalmers Watson of Edinburgh found that rats on a lean meat diet
deteriorated so rapidly that after two or three generations they became
deformed and dwarfed and ceased to reproduce.

The International Scientific Food Commission appointed by the Allies at
the time of the Great War and charged with the duty of fixing the
minimum ration of different food essentials, declared it to be
unnecessary to fix a minimum meat ration, "in view of the fact that no
absolute physiological need exists for meat, since the proteins of meat
can be replaced by other proteins of animal origin, such as those
contained in milk, cheese and eggs, as well as by proteins of vegetable
origin."

It is evident from the above facts that an effort to induce the American
people to eat less meat and more nuts would do no harm and should prove
substantially beneficial.

A leading textbook on "Nutrition and Clinical Dietetics" by Carter, Howe
and Mason of Columbia University, calls attention to the encouraging
fact that "Of late there has been a distinct reaction in the meat-eating
of the wealthier classes, and one sees less meat and more vegetable
habits as they progress upward in the scale of civilization. Also, on
account of their sedentary habits, people find that the ingestion of
considerable quantities of animal protein, with the consequent increase
in intestinal putrefaction, gives rise to symptoms of toxemia, which
have assumed a very definite place in the pathology of disease."

That meat enormously increases intestinal putrefaction cannot be
questioned. It is this fact which makes the difference between the
excreta of a dog or lion and that of a cow or horse. All carnivorous
animals suffer from autointoxication.

The eminent pathologist of the Philadelphia Zoo states that all dogs
over three years of age have hardened arteries, while horses practically
never show arterial changes even when very old