VITAMIN C IN THE BLOOD, SPINAL FLUID AND URINE

METHODS AND MATERIALS The patients tested numbered 133. They were taken in about equal numbers from the general medical and the neuropsychiatric wards. With only two exceptions all patients were afebrile at the time of testing, although a few had recently recovered from febrile illnesses. There was a slightly increased incidence of definite nutritional diseases (six cases of frank scurvy, two of pellagra, three of "malnutrition," eleven of peripheral neuritis of avitaminotic origin and eight of alcoholism without neuritis), because patients with such diseases were referred to us for vitamin studies. Otherwise no attempt was made to select patients on the basis of either disease entities or previous dietary history. It should be noted, however, that the patients at Bellevue Hospital are in general drawn from the lowest income groups and that the majority subsist on diets very low in all vitamins. In addition the routine ward diets are rather