Page 47 - Spring2015

Great Pioneers in Nutrition of

the Twentieth Century

by Sylvia Onusic, PhD, CNS, LDN

hile recruiting for the Boer War in the years
1899 to 1902, the British Army Medical

WService reported that fully 40 percent of volun-
teers were rejected for medical reasons such as deformi-

ties, rotten teeth and weak hearts, a situation which only
became worse during the ensuing years of the First World

War. Scientists found that British children of the day were
sustained mainly on bread made from white flour as milk

was in short supply. Many children suffered from rick-
1
ets and tuberculosis, as portrayed by the beloved Charles

Dickens’ character, Tiny Tim, from The Christmas Carol. 2
On the other side of the great pond, medical examinations of the 1910s
in the U.S. also revealed an unhealthy citizenry. Of 3.76 million men ex-
amined for service in World War I, over half a million were rejected as
unfit; and of the 2.7 million called into service, about 47 percent suffered
physical impairments. Most Americans of that time suffered some kind
3
of health problem. In the same time period, among five thousand citizens
of Framingham, Massachusetts, examined as part of a Metropolitan Life
Insurance demonstration project to control tuberculosis, 77 percent were
recorded as ill with some disease. 4

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