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EVELYN LYMAN BLANCHARD, Ph.D.; HAROLD A. HARPER, Sc.B.

Arch Intern Med. 1940;66(3):661-669.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

With the recognition that cases of mild, subclinical vitamin deficiency are much more common than cases of severe deficiency, the need for adequate diagnostic methods for early avitaminotic states is urgently felt by clinicians. Only by such methods can the clinician determine the borderline states of malnutrition that not only contribute to his patients' ill health but prevent the best response to therapeutic measures.

As a criterion of deficiency of vitamin A, the night blindness or dark adaptation test is valuable, especially since the work of Wald,¹ Wald and Clark,² Hecht and his co-workers³ and others has demonstrated the physiologic role of vitamin A in the generation of the visual purple. Impairment of the visual cycle occurs as one of the first signs of an inadequate supply of vitamin A.

Jeghers⁴ has reviewed the literature on this test, and Hecht⁵ has reviewed the literature on this test, and Hecht⁵ has . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
DAVIS, CALIF.; LOS ANGELES

From the Department of Biological Sciences, Loyola University of Los Angeles.

Footnotes
This research was supported by a grant from Anabolic Foods, Inc.