Consider the natural character of the dietary of the great bulk of the Japanese people, determined as it was by adverse financial circumstances. As Oshima states, “The rural population of the interior depends very largely or entirely upon a vegetable diet. Fish is eaten perhaps once or twice a month, and meat once or twice a year, if at all. The poorer working classes in the cities also use very little animal food. But the poorer classes in the city and the peasantry of the rural districts comprise nearly 75 per cent of the total population, and it is therefore safe to assume that this proportion lives chiefly, or wholly, upon vegetable diet. And this, it may be observed, means vegetarianism literally. The so-called lacto-vegetarianism is unknown in Japan. Cows are scarce, and milk and other dairy products are expensive, and such as are available are consumed almost entirely by the wealthier people in the cities.” It is also to be noted that the amount of fat in Japanese dietaries is very small. The reported data indicate that the usual vegetable dietaries contain only about 10 grams of fat per day, while even in the average mixed dietaries the amount rarely rises above 20 grams per day. In other words, the ordinary food of the Japanese was characterized by great lack of variety, and with such a preponderance of carbohydrate materials of a limited kind that it is easy to conceive of a possible dearth of some essential or accessory element, necessary for the preservation of that nutritive balance which aids in protection against disease. If the resistance of the body to disease germs and toxic influences in general is really diminished by reducing the consumption of proteid food below the set dietary standards, then obviously here lies a tangible reason for the maintenance of a high proteid intake. I know of only one series of scientific observations that bears directly on this question. Dr. Reid Hunt of Washington has studied recently the power of resistance to the poison acetonitrile of animals kept for some time upon a reduced proteid diet. “My experiments,” says Dr. Hunt, “showed in all cases that the resistance was much increased.” In other words, the animals that had been fed a low proteid ration were able to endure a much larger dose of the poison than corresponding animals on their customary diet; “they resisted 2–3 times the ordinary fatal dose of acetonitrile.” This general subject, however, is obviously a very important one, and merits further experimental study under a diversity of conditions.