The Journal of the American Medical Association

SOME FEATURES OF MALNUTRITION IN INFANCY German pediatrists use the termNährschadento designate various types of malnutrition in children. The emphasis is placed on a pathologic make-up of the organism as the result of unsatisfactory utilization of the available food-supply. The defect may be conditioned by the individual itself and ultimately result in some abnormal composition of the body owing to an inherent anomaly; or it may be the outcome of an inadequate quality of the nutriment supplied. In other words, here is a situation in which both food and bodily constitution may be at fault. Abnormally functioning mechanisms are not easily located in the human body—and least of all in the infant organism. Food factors are more readily amenable to analysis and review from the point of view of their physiologic fitness. The study of the association of pathologic phenomena with dietary causes in the formative