Effects of Disease on Nutrition

It is well known that in certain diseases malnutrition or wasting occurs despite the fact that the process itself does not involve primarily the gastrointestinal tract. A good example of such a disease is pulmonary tuberculosis, which received the name of consumption or phthisis. Jacobi 1 in 1889, discussing the symptomatology of tuberculosis in childhood, noted: children are thin and puny, or emaciate visibly, in spite of good and sufficient nourishment and fair digestion in the absence of fever. Recently in a study of malnutrition in infants conducted by one of the authors, 2 it became strikingly clear that disease in the form of chronic infection was the most important etiologic factor as regards failure of infants to gain weight. Of 1,000 infants admitted to a hospital with the chief complaint of failure to gain, only 10 per cent could be considered to have been badly fed. The failure