Dinner: Tomato soup; salt pork boiled with vegetables, usually cabbage, sometimes string beans; Irish potatoes; fresh meat only on rare occasions in the winter, never in summer; biscuit or corn bread.

Supper: Bread with milk when they can get milk; bread is the main part of supper with anything left over from dinner; occasionally something canned. There are nine in the family, with seven children, from fourteen years to four montha. and they purchase every month: 100 pounds flour, one bushel corn meal, one peck Irish potatoes.

Mrs. B., wife of mill operative. Breakfast: Rice, oatmeal occasionally, hominy frequently, bread, butter and jelly; coffee; eggs several days a week; in winter fresh meat once a week.

Dinner: Irish potatoes, bacon and vegetables, beans, peas, or turnip greens; bread and butter.

Supper: Irish potatoes, cornbread sometimes, otherwise wheat bread, butter, and anything left from dinner; drinks no milk; has a chicken occasionally, but not often.

Vedder sums up his observations as follows:

In general it may be said that the great bulk of the food of these poorer pellagrins consists of wheat flour, cornmeal, potatoes, salt pork and boiled vegetables, and that during the winter even these latter are scarce and consist chiefly of beans and cabbage. In some instances a considerable amount of canned meats and vegetables were used, but most of the pellagrins did not use these to any extent. It will be seen that the great bulk of the food consisted of carbohydrates and that protein foods such as meat, milk and eggs are relatively little used. It is also important to notice that wheat flour, cornmeal and salt meat are deficient in both scurvy and beriberi vitamins. Potatoes possess the scurvy vitamin, but are relatively very low in beriberi vitamins. It has been demonstrated that the vitamins present in canned goods may be destroyed by the sterilization to which they are subjected. It is therefore clear that these people are living in great part on foodstuffs the continued and disproportionate use of which will produce either beriberi or scurvy, or both. It may be asked why these people do not suffer from these diseases. This is because they all eat sufficient fruit or fresh vegetables to protect them from scurvy, while many of them eat peas and beans frequently.

These rank as good preventives of beriberi. But it is quite reasonable to suppose that possibly there is some third deficiency in wheat flour, cornbread, etc., from which they are not protected by these additions. Generally speaking, and with the exception of meat, which is not used largely by the poor, the diet is much more limited in the winter. If pellagra is a deficiency disease, it is during these winter months that it develops and the symptoms appear in the spring. At about that time eggs, milk, fresh vegetables and fruits become abundant and cheap, are used in considerable quantities as compared with the winter diet, and the patients for the most part recover, only to develop another recurrence the following spring after another winter on a comparatively limited diet.

To the cases above mentioned, all of which came from the poorer classes, whose diet is largely governed by necessity, may be added two or three coming from well-to-do families:

Mrs. D., housewife in comfortable circumstances. Breakfast: Grits or oatmeal, ham or bacon; eats an egg about two mornings a week; bread, biscuit and postum. States that the chief part of her breakfast is bread and butter and postum.

Dinner: Soup (canned), beans, and Irish potatoes; cabbage, corn and other vegetables in summer, but all winter main part of dinner is beans, and potatoes; bread and often pie or cake; one glass buttermilk.

Supper: Same as dinner.

Meat is served often but patient states that she does not care for it and almost never eats it. Three adults in family purchase monthly: 100 pounds flour, one peck cornmeal, one peck potatoes.

Mrs. B., wife of hardware dealer in comfortable circumstances. Breakfast: Hominy and other cereals; one egg, nearly every morning; biscuits or toast or batter cakes with coffee; very rarely a small piece of steak.

Dinner: Macaroni, occasionally, usually Irish potatoes or rice, steak is served for the rest of the family, but she never eats it. States that she never has cared for meat. Occasionally had chicken or fish and might eat a little of these. Practically no vegetables in the winter, when she ate almost nothing but potatoes and bread. Even during the summer, when vegetables were plenty, she ate mostly potatoes, as she preferred them. Has also been a hearty bread eater, and eats more of this than anything else. Says she could almost live on bread.

Supper: Just bread and jelly. Has eaten this for supper as long as she can remember. Did not drink milk, and used very little butter. Has continued cutting one thing after another out of her diet because she thought the foods thus omitted were the cause of indigestion, and for nearly a year before her illness, lived chiefly on bread and potatoes.

Mrs. T., housewife in well-to-do circumstances. Breakfast: Either oatmeal or grits; bacon or ham; usually ate an egg several times a week; bread, butter and coffee.

Dinner: Usually salt pork boiled with vegetables. During the winter when there were not many vegetables, used canned goods. Also had canned salmon and salt fish. She served fresh beef several times a week, but she did not care for it and seldom ate it. Ate a small piece of chicken several times a week. She always had boiled rice and also Irish potatoes and ate freely of both, and also of bread. Usually had cake and stewed fruit for dessert.

Supper: Hominy with either cheese, ham or bacon, and rarely eggs. She ate a fair amount of hominy and a considerable amount of bread. States that she is a little inclined to be a vegetarian because she does not like to have animals killed. Drank no milk, ate very few eggs, and bought a large amount of canned goods.