tor of anthropology in the American Museum
of Natural History, the rabbits of northern Canada, in times of great
scarcity of food, also resort to the eating of flesh. The necessity for
complete protein to maintain physical fitness is so great that animals
by nature the farthest removed from the carnivorous class resort to
flesh eating when this is the only source of the needed element.

But what bearing has all this upon the dietetic use of nuts? The
relation is very direct and very important. The situation developed as a
result of the World War made very clear to everybody how close the world
has arrived to the point where the careful economizing of our food
resources will be absolutely necessary. The rapid increase of the
world's population which has occurred, especially within the last two
centuries, is a hew world experience. Two hundred years ago the average
length of human life was less than 20 years, as it still is in Mexico
and some other parts of the world where the life-saving influence of
modern sanitation and health conservation have not had an opportunity to
exercise their influence. In former times great epidemics devastated
whole continents so frequently that the world's population barely held
its own from century to century. In many instances whole tribes were
wiped out. Such catastrophes are now almost unknown, although we still
have with us the plagues of influenza, tuberculosis, syphilis, and
pneumonia. Even these, however, are being conquered, so that their
destructive influence is being stayed.

At the present rate at which the population of the world is increasing,
the time is certainly not far distant when it will be necessary to
utilize in the most economical manner possible every acre of soil
capable of producing food. During the war the attention of
agriculturists was very forcibly called to the enormous waste involved
in our so-called animal industry. The first measure of food economy
adopted in Germany at the beginning of the war was the slaughter of a
large part of livestock. The same measure was adopted in Scandinavian
countries and in all parts of central Europe. This was absolutely
necessary, as Lusk and numerous other authorities have shown, for the
reason that to produce one pound of water-free food in the form of beef
or mutton requires the consumption more than 30 pounds of digestible
food material. The cow is a much more economical means of food
transformation, requiring the consump