If the stomach and intestines are active and can handle the excess of food, its absorption beyond what the system requires overloads the blood and causes obesity or diseases of the skin and kidneys. It thus brings about abnormal deposits as in gout, or the calculi found in the kidney or the gall-bladder. Biliousness and congestion of the liver may follow, with constant headache, coated tongue, foul breath, and languor of body and of mind. Many habitually eat too much and take too little fluid, though, due to a greater spread of knowledge, overeating is becoming less common. On the other hand, an insufficient or illy balanced diet will bring in its train disorders of the system scarcely less harmful. A large number, particularly of young girls, take insufficient food, eat irregularly, and are undernourished. When one does not eat sufficient food or the proper kind and variety, the tissues of the digestive organs are undernourished and do their work imperfectly. The undernourished are usually those who work at high tension, those who worry, or those who do not get bodily exercise proportionate to the mental. Mental workers are liable to become preoccupied and forget to take food. Growing girls who are over-interested in studies, anxious concerning examinations, etc., neglect their meals. Parents are often to blame in these cases by unduly encouraging the intellectual effort. Members of some religious sects practice undereating as a form of asceticism; many others from poverty are unable to procure a sufficient amount of food. Too many, if not the majority of those concerned with the purchase and preparation of food, understand but little of food values and the importance of their proper combination. No matter how simple the menu, it should embrace the elements the system needs for its complete sustenance. The problem of nutrition must be solved largely through chemistry. The health and efficiency of the individual and of the nation depend on careful study of the foods placed on the market, their chemical components, and their possible adulteration. Happily the United States Government, realizing that its power as a nation depends on the strength and health of its citizens, has established experimental and analytical food departments. As a result of the findings of the government chemists, there was enacted in 1906, the Food and Drugs Act, which has raised the standard of food purity, by prescribing the conditions under which foods may be manufactured and sold. The law compels the maker of artificially colored or preserved food products to correctly label his goods. The national law instigated the passage of various state laws, which have further helped to insure a supply of pure food products; yet we need other laws which shall have greater efficiency and wider scope. The strength of Germany as a nation is due very largely to the government supervision of foods manufactured and imported.