ngsamt' to supply a
ration which shall be physiologically adequate, though
professedly containing little more than enough to cover minimal
requirements; and it is believed that the official prisoners'
ration contains as much as the daily food of many millions of
German subjects. There is no question that the official prison
ration is an adequate ration from the standpoint of animal
nutrition. In addition to this allotted camp ration the
prisoners possess the food sent in from abroad as addenda.

In the case of the Russian prisoners, these extra food stuffs
sent in from abroad are small in amount; in the case of the
French, moderate; in the case of the English, large. In all the
prison camps that I have visited it is the practice to prepare
food for the number of men in the camp, irrespective of
nationality, in accordance with the menu of Professor Backhaus.
As a rule, the British prisoners take little or none of the
food, and their share is eaten by prisoners of other
nationalities. In Ruhleben the state of affairs at present
existing has convinced the interned civilians that the situation
is, so to speak, reversed: that the German authorities seem to
regard the foodstuffs sent in from abroad as the regular diet of
the interned men, and the camp allotments as the addenda.

It is not surprising that "the interned men are deeply dissatisfied with
the present state of affairs." The German authorities, finding that at
least half the total number of the interned at Ruhleben subsist largely
upon private packages, have made a "sharp reduction in the amount of
foodstuff allotted to the camp." I have no wish to defend this
proceeding, but it must be allowed that to the Government of a blockaded
country there is a great temptation to cut down supplies when this will
not be a danger to the prisoners themselves.

Both reports of Dr. Taylor [Miscel. No. 18 (1916) and Miscel. No. 21
(1916)] are important studies of the question of nutrition, and his
short discussion (No. 18, p. 4) of the psychological aspects of
monotonous diet and the nutritional effects of internment is worth
careful attention. "A diet that would be tolerated if the subject were
at liberty may become intolerable under conditions of imprisonment.
There is a large personal equation operative in this direction. The
soldier imbued with a high sense of his value to his country and of