Abstract
OF the two factors which together mould the individual, heredity and environment, modern knowledge is attributing more and more importance to the latter; in fact, as Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins pointed out in his Sir Henry Trueman Wood Memorial Lecture delivered before the Royal Society of Arts on February 6, although inheritance must set definite limits to the possibilities before each individual, environmental influences can decide whether, within those limits, the highest level possible is reached, or only a level which may be much lower than this. Among all the demands which the body makes on its environment, that for its food is of outstanding importance, and it is to-day becoming recognised that right nutrition, especially in early life, may profoundly affect the well-being and social value of the individual. Knowledge obtained by scientific inquiry is beginning to take the place of instinct and appetite aided by very slowly growing transmitted experience. There is still to be combatted the idea that the race, having survived through the ages without such knowledge, can continue to thrive without making any practical use of it: but mere survival of a race is no proof that the majority of its members have ever lived in optimal conditions, or have ever displayed to the full their innate capacities.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Problems of Human Nutrition. Nature 135, 321–322 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135321a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135321a0
This article is cited by
-
Nature and Politics between the Wars
Nature (1969)