Page:The Road to Wellville (1926).djvu/26

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The Road to Wellville

languors and inefficiencies accepted by many persons as inevitable.

Vitamin AVitamin A is particularly important to general well-being. It is stored in the body and seems to build a positive resistance to disease. Recent experiments have shown the importance of carrying a wide margin of insurance in the consumption of foods containing good supplies of vitamin A. Children lacking a sufficient amount of this important vitamin, while displaying an appearance of good health while young, at adolescence revealed marked tendencies toward lung disease, and their general resistance to infections was extremely low.

A serious eye trouble with a very long name (xerophthalmia) results from lack of vitamin A. The traveler along Wellville’s trouble-free road will not neglect this important food element, which builds his resistance to bodily ills. The best sources of vitamin A are butter, cream, milk, egg yolk, and spinach.

Vitamin BLack of vitamin B in the day’s food supply causes loss of appetite, poor digestion, and faulty nutrition. In fact, without an adequate supply of this important vitamin, one’s entire bodily vigor is lowered, growth is retarded, and the system is left easy prey to disease. Diets totally lacking in vitamin B cause a nerve disease named “beriberi,” and it is, therefore, called the “antineuritic” vitamin. It is not stored in the system for use when wanted, and therefore it is important, if we would travel to Wellville, to get an adequate amount of vitamin B in our food each day. Fortunately this is

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