Science and Humanity

Abstract

ANY doubts as to the value of the Conference on "The Place of Science and Industry", arranged by the British Association in January 12 and 13, should have been removed by Lord Woolton's well-deserved tribute to the way in which the educational work of the Association in the field of nutrition, carried out over the ten years following Sir F. Gowland Hopkins' presidential address at Leicester in 1933, had prepared the public mind for the food policy which averted the threat of definite food shortage in Britain soon after Lord Woolton took office in April 1940. People had come to realize that nutrition, far from being a fad, was the plainest of common sense. A nutrition policy which aimed at distributing food on the basis of its nutritional value, not its capacity to satisfy appetite, so that the vulnerable classes—mothers, expectant mothers, infants and children and heavy workers—should have full protection, and the rest of the population should have a physiologically adequate diet, had met with the approval and support of the public. Further, such a policy is in a fair way to become a permanent part of the food policy of Britain. The immense benefit to the nation's health and the actual raising of the pre-war standard even under stress of war have already been generally recognized, and if other speakers besides Lord Woolton dwelt on the point, it was rather to stress the folly of lightly abandoning such a solid advance, and to indicate the immensely greater possibilities which the further extension of scientific research in this and in related fields and its application in practice and policy hold for the future.