MALNUTRITION AND LUNACY
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—My long-held conviction that malnutrition and mental illness are correlated—that is, that malnutrition itself is a direct cause of lunacy—seems considerably strengthened by recent facts from two such dark, unemployed areas as Liverpool and Lancashire, where malnutrition is known to
exist. Two recent cases taken at random_ from the Liverpool Social Service papers show something of the position of many families who are living much below the recent B.M.A. minimum diet.
I. Family of 10. Husband, invalid wife, and eight children. Total weekly income. 38s. 3d. ; rent, 10s. 6d. Amount left for food,
clothes, fuel, &c. 27s. 9d. B.M.A. figure for food alone, 46s. ; i.e., 18s. 3d. more thi:n total income.
2. Family of 7. Total weekly food expenditure, 20s. B.M.A. figure, 34a. 7d. ; i.e., 14s. 7d. higher.
The disturbing thing is that these are only known eases— how many are the unknown cases of prolonged malnutrition ?
It is therefore perhaps not unconnected with the growth of unemployment and malnutrition that a distressed area like Liverpool should possess the unenviable record of having in December, 1933, the highest death-rate of any of the 118 large -towns in Britain, as well as an unsatisfactory infantile mortality rate. Yet more disturbing are the following facts, that in Lancashire and Liverpool area :
(a) There has been an alarming increase in scarlet fever and diphtheria. (b) Eighty per cent. of Territorial recruits were medically rejected during a recent period.
(c) There has been such an alarming increase in lunacy (as apart from suicides) that extra accommodation is said to be rather urgently required.
It is suggested that the above are not chance coincidences, but are correlated ; that chronic malnutrition (produced by low unemployment relief) is a direct cause of lunacy. It would be interesting to have a medical opinion.—I am, Sir, &c.,
74 Granville Road, Liverpool.
KENNErn BRADSRAW.
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