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This paper reinforces the idea of integrating more closely the social and medical sciences with an emphasis on people. The nexus between health and development is examined together with national research capability building as part of essential national health research progress. Suggestions are made identifying the most urgent requirements for further action.

In rats rendered vitamin A-deficient, there was a marked atrophy of the thymus and the spleen. To a large extent, but not completely, these changes were a result of the concomitant protein-calorie undernutrition. In the thymus the cortex was depleted of lymphocytes. The number of germinal centres was reduced in the spleen. The incorporation of [³H-methyl]thymidine into DNA in cells derived from thymus and spleen of deficient animals was six times lower than in normal littermate controls. On administration of sheep erythrocytes (SRBC), the number of plaque-forming cells per million nucleated spleen cells in deficient animals was 73±6, as compared with 141±36 in normal controls Similar observations were made on the titres of haemagglutinins and haemolysins formed in response to SRBC, The response of vitamin A plus protein-calorie-deficient animals to diphtheria and tetanus toxoid injection was poorer than the pair-fed controls. These studies demonstrate an important influence of vitamin A and protein-calorie nutrition on lymphoid organs and on immune responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time is of the essence if the developing world is to avoid the disasters that unhealthy habits and life-styles have afflicted on the industrialized countries. Diseases of affluence refer to [...]

The article focuses on the relation of deficiencies of vitamin A and of essential fatty acids of follicular hyperkeratosis in rats. Hyperkeratosis of the hair follicles resulting in a papular eruption of the skin has been known to dermatologists for nearly a century to be present in a variety of skin diseases such as pityriasis rubra pilaris, keratosis follicularis, lichen pilaris sou spinulosus, keratosis follicularis contagiosa and keratosis pilaris. Several cases of follicular hyperkeratosis in association with signs of deficiency of the B complex were recorded, and marked improvement in nine cases treated with yeast extract was reported.