Malnutrition and vitamin deficiency in recently released prisoners of war

The remarkable recuperative power of the human body after prolonged periods of marked systematized undernourishment is illustrated by careful physical examination of 121 American soldiers released three weeks previously from 18 different prisoner of war camps in Germany. Only one of these prisoners showed moderate undernourishment and vitamin deficiency. More than 53% showed no evidence of any vitamin deficiency clinically, and the others showed minimal evidence (one-plus) of vitamin de ficiencies to varying extents. Analysis shows that the supplementary rations furnished in the Red Cross Packages were the most important single factor in preventing serious nutritional failure in these prisoners of war.