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Video games have the potential to improve brain plasticity in people with Down syndrome. However, little has been done to understand video game preferences in this population. The purpose of this paper is to describe a brief exploration of video game preferences in children with Down syndrome.

An online survey was used to collect information from parents of children with Down syndrome about their child’s favorite video games and why they like video games.

Children with Down syndrome, as reported by their parents, most frequently play action/adventure games, and have several motivating factors for game play including overcoming challenges to gain reward and having fun engaging in the game world.

The current study only recruited from a small sample of the Down syndrome population and therefore may lack generalizability.

Gaining a better understanding of which aspects of video games appeal to children with Down syndrome. Knowing what they prefer will enable us to design games that are engaging and cognitively beneficial.

This paper proposes the importance of video game play to promote development in children with Down syndrome.

The prayer against the Poultry (Hygiene) Regulations which we briefly mentioned in the editorial of our last issue, was lodged as a result of activity by the Environmental Health Officers' Association. Incidentally it is the first occasion as far as we can recall that a prayer has been lodged against any of the rash of food regulations of recent years, and reflects the strong feelings of the public health inspectorate.

The two islands of Trinidad and Tobago were made one administrative unit in the year 1889. The total area is something under two thousand square miles— that of an ordinary English county. The climate is tropical and healthy, the soil extremely fertile. With the exception of the asphalt of La Brea the population is mainly concerned with the forest products and with the care of and development of the sugar and cocoa plantations. The population is mixed—East Indians; people of negro stock, and a small proportion of people of European descent. With a population exhibiting widely different cultural levels the authorities responsible for public health are confronted with correspondingly complex administrative problems. The Government Chemical Department is occupied not only with the administration proper to such a department, but acts in an advisory capacity when matters relating to plantation or local manufactured products are brought to its notice. It is satisfactory to learn of the “notable developments which have taken place in the Department in recent years.” The extent of this development may be partly judged by the estimates, which in 1945 amounted to about twenty‐nine thousand dollars, to those for 1946: these were some forty‐three thousand dollars. This increase led to the enlarging of the Departmental buildings, the purchasing of special apparatus—where this came from is not stated, but if from this country its source of origin is suggested by “the extreme slowness of delivery,” and this it seems is, or let us hope was, delaying the benefits expected from the increase in expenditure. The library, too, was enlarged. Nor are the activities of the Department limited to Trinidad alone. Reference is made to the submission of samples from various islands in the British West Indies. In a word, the Chemical Department is in close and constant touch with all social and industrial developments in the island, and the hope is expressed, and it will no doubt be justified, that the laboratory will stand comparison with any laboratory of its kind and size in the Empire. With regard to the work of the Department, it seems that 5,193 samples were examinend and reported on during the year. Of these, 4,776 were official. The bulk of the work relates to Customs (1,509 samples) and Police (2,577 samples). Among the samples submitted by the police for examination by the Department were nine cases of suspected ground glass in foodstuffs, and 255 of viscera and other articles for poison. The Port of Spain City Council submitted 407 samples of potable water. It is observed that the capital city “appears for the first time as an appreciable source of work.” Only five samples were submitted in each of the two previous years. The result of the analyses showed that the samples submitted were uniformly satisfactory from a chemical point of view. The Customs examination of 146 samples were mainly for the purpose of determining the alcohol content of medical preparations and essences. The Excise examinations for duty purposes—1,314 samples in all—were almost exclusively concerned with samples of rum, bitters, brandy, and so forth. These were all of local manufacture, and they constitute an important item in local manufacture. Angostura and other bitters are too well known to require more than passing mention. The Preventive branch had to consider twelve cases for the possession of prepared opium. Eight prosecutions were successful, and fines, amounting to $925, were inflicted. As remarked above, all the major sources of water supply of the city are now examined each month. Other sources of water supply outside the city are now also subject to examination under the supervision of the Medical Services. The Colonial Secretary, to whom this report was submitted for the information of the Governor of the Colony, had informed the Town Clerk of the Port of Spain in June, 1945, that the Chemist's Department was in a position to carry out analyses of foodstuffs and drugs submitted by the City Council. In spite of this, the amount of work done for the City Council had not been on the scale that was anticipated, for up to the end of the year 1946 no samples of the kind had been sent in for purposes of analysis. On the other hand, we notice that 1,753 food samples were examined in 1946, as against 1,394 in 1945, but these were from areas outside the area under the control of the Port of Spain Authorities, but no drug samples were submitted, nor, it seems, have any been submitted under the Food and Drug Ordinance (chap. 12, No. 3) for several years! We are, therefore, not surprised to read that “it is impossible to say to what extent (if any) these important articles are sold in an adulterated or unsatisfactory condition.” It is true that adulteration of foodstuffs— nobody can say anything about drugs—would seem to be on the decrease as the percentage figure for 1944 was 10·8, that for 1945 was 9·3, and for 1946, 7. The figures, however, refer to foodstuffs in general. If, however, we turn to figures that relate to the purity of the domestic milk supply, we find that they tell in some respects a different tale. Out of the 1,753 samples sent in for analysis 454 were milk samples. Of these, 118, or 25·9 per cent., were reported against. It is true that the figure just given is less than that of the two preceding years—1944, 37·3 per cent., and 1945, 29·5 per cent.—but the chief chemist, writing with a full knowledge of the circumstances and making, no doubt, full allowance for administrative difficulties, calls the 1946 figure “outstandingly bad,” and this percentage of adulteration still does not tell the whole tale. It seems that the larger dairies are not to blame, but “it must be a matter for continued concern that one‐quarter of the milk sold by the smaller retailers is adulterated,” for they number among their customers those “who can least afford the nutritional loss involved.” The figures, it will be noted, show a decrease, and this, it is observed, is due to “greater vigilance” on the part of the police and “other competent authorities.” In the unadulterated samples the average fat content was 3·9 per cent., and of solids not fat 8·6 per cent., so there seems to be nothing wrong with the livestock as far as these figures go, but the average figures for the adulterated samples were 3·2 per cent. of fat and 7·6 per cent. of solids not fat. Of the 118 samples reported against, 69 were deficient in solids not fat, 17 in fat content, 32 were deficient in both. The standards laid down by law for the composition of milk are 8·5 per cent. solids not fat, and 3 per cent. fat. Fines amounting to $2,460 were imposed. It was pointed out that a remedy for the present state of things is to take more samples at more frequent intervals. This has been done, but the percentage of adulteration is still abnormally high. Increased vigilance by the police, who are, it appears, the sampling officers, is certainly demanded. The percentage of adulteration for other foodstuffs is very low. It calls for no special comment.

“The year covered by the report starts in July, 1945, and ends in September, 1946. During this time the Council has had many complicated administrative tasks to perform because the period is the first almost complete year covering the change‐over from war to peace. In July of last year the ice cream trade was in the middle of one of the most phenomenal sets of conditions in the whole of its varied existence. It will be remembered that 60 per cent. of the pre‐war usage of sugar and an allocation of shimmed milk powder was still available to the trade, but the quantities were relatively small compared with the enormous public demand for our product, and the ice cream trade had begun to attract the attention of unscrupulous speculators. Every effort was made by the Ministry of Food, who alone had the power to exert any regulation whatever, to prevent unauthorised persons from entering the trade. These efforts were not always successful, but the Association took whatever steps lay in its power to assist the Ministry to prevent firms who had never been in the trade before starling the manufacture and the sale of ice cream, to the detriment of the established trader who had been doing his very best against almost overwhelming obstacles. The loose interpretation of the right of a caterer to make and sell ice cream was for a long time a most difficult problem, but during the year the Ministry of Food Executive Officers have managed to curtail a great many of the unauthorised sales of ice cream which were taking place at points far distant from the caterer's premises when the product had been made with materials obtained under a catering licence. In many of the large cities this type of trade brought the whole industry into disrepute because various forms of ice cream were being sold to the public at fantastically high prices. The whole problem of the manufacture of ice cream has been the subject of discussions by the members of the Technical Advisory Committee, mainly on the subject of proposed standards of quality and bacteriological purity. The Executive Council is indebted to the painstaking efforts of the members of this Committee for their careful researches and many long discussions. The work undertaken by the Ministry of Food and the knowledge it has gained in dietetic values during the years of war‐time feeding of the British population has been considered very carefully and the point of view of what constitutes the maximum nutrition in ice cream has altered from the pre‐war knowledge of rating the value of ice cream in accordance with the highest possible milk fats content. Professor Sir Jack Drummond, when he was the Nutritional Officer to the Ministry of Food, emphasised the need in the everyday diet of both children and adults, of the maximum amount of milk minerals and milk solids not fat. In normal times when ingredients are in free supply there is no difficulty with either children or grown‐ups in obtaining plentiful supplies of fat, but almost all of the value of the milk solids not fat has been forgotten or else brought into disrepute following the laws which were passed many years ago compelling tins of condensed skimmed milk to be marked ‘Unfit for Babies.’ The Technical Committee, taking all of these facts into consideration, has evolved a standard which has been agreed by the Executive Council and submitted to the Ministry of Food, designed to give the best type of ice cream, planned in such a way that the maximum amount of milk‐solids‐not‐fat can be included. This skimmed milk powder can be incorporated into the mix and still keep a reasonable quantity of fat, which in the Committee's opinion should consist only of milk fat. After the most careful research and discussions, having in mind the interest of the small trader who cannot install very elaborate machinery, it was agreed by the Committee that, when fresh dairy cream becomes available again, a minimum standard of milk fat in ice cream should be arranged to include the use of both fresh dairy milk and cream as well as enough skimmed milk powder to bring the total to a correct balance of ingredients which would freeze in the average type of freezer without becoming sandy or crystallised. There was a good deal of experience on which the Committee could base its findings, obtained from the use of the standards put into force by the Government of Northern Ireland before the war; these were not fully balanced and required some adjustment. Negotiations on the question of the standard between Ice Cream Alliance and the Wholesale Ice Cream Manufacturers' Federation were conducted at great length and the different points of view were examined with the utmost care. It has been found, however, that the proposals by the different Associations cannot be reconciled to form one standard common to the best interest of the members of both Associations. The Ice Cream Alliance has been safeguarding the welfare of the general public and thereby the future trade of its members, and it has insisted that the minimum standards which its Technical Committee has recommended should not be varied in principle to comply with the somewhat wider interpretation of the Wholesale Federation. One point upon which the Technical Committee lays great stress is that the tests for the standard should always be conducted by sampling the finished ice cream as delivered to the consumer, and not the ice cream mix as made in the factory. This would place definite limitations on the amount of over‐run which could be permitted and would prevent any ice cream manufacturer, regardless of his type of machinery, from giving a smaller quantity of fat or milk solids to the consumer, than his competitor who might have less elaborate and expensive machinery. It has, of course, been made clear that all questions relating to a standard for ice cream refer not to the present period of emergency, with its substitute ingredients, but to the time when all ingredients can be purchased free of any restriction by every ice cream manufacturer. There is no doubt that if it were possible to evolve a standard of substitute ingredients it would be of the greatest advantage to the trade, but this cannot be done until the right ingredients, namely skimmed milk powder, fat and sugar are made available to every member of the trade in equal proportions. Your Executive Council has approached the Minister of Food on various occasions seeking an interview to put these points before him and to emphasise the need for better and more consistent supplies of the right types of materials so that ice cream can be made worthy of its name by all manufacturers. It is also anxious to remove the difference in the allocations as between the larger manufacturer who receives 70 per cent. of his datum usage of fat and the ice cream trader who made his product in pre‐war days only from fresh milk, and who is now prohibited from making an ice cream for consumption with more than about 2¼ per cent. fat. The serious world position and shortage of food materials has, of course, worked against this project, and until there is some easing of the supply of raw materials for better distribution within the world as a whole, the British Government has found it is unable to provide supplies of the right ingredients. Your Chairman and Executive Council are, however, using every effort to bring about the desirable situation as quickly as possible. In recent months there had been major disasters to the trade which had been caused by the outbreak of typhoid fever conveyed through carriers of this disease to members of the general public through the medium of ice cream. These outbreaks have led to a tremendous amount of wrongful reporting in the daily Press and the many quite unjustified allegations against both the ice cream traders and the Local Government officials, particularly the Sanitary Inspectors and Medical Officers of Health, who are responsible for the interpretation of the 1938 Food and Drugs Act controlling the registration of ice cream manufacturing premises, and who have worked very hard to help both the trade and the public. It must be agreed that many ice cream manufacturers have been working without very much knowledge of the responsibilities of their trade and under enormous handicaps, due to the dilapidations caused by six years of war and their inability to have building work and decorations carried out to make their small factories suitable for the manufacture of ice cream. These years of war have also led to a much greater wear and tear on ice cream plant than would normally have been the case, because the trade has had to put up with flour instead of skimmed milk powder even before it was shut down in 1942. Deterioration and rust during the shut down period from September, 1942, until December, 1944, was even greater than if the plant had been in constant use even with substitute materials. The result has been that many ice cream traders have been faced with enormous difficulties of plant renewals at a time when machinery is unobtainable, with the result that unhygienic vessels and utensils have had to be kept in service, which in the ordinary way would have been scrapped many years ago. The Alliance is taking every step possible with the other Associations that manufacture plant equipment and utensils, to improve supplies to those who need the articles, but here again supplies of raw materials to the machinery equipment manufacturers are growing worse and worse. It is because of this situation that in the negotiations with the Ministry of Health regarding the compulsory heat treatment programme the greatest latitude is being requested so that no regulations would be brought into force until the trade is in a position to comply with them without undue hardship. We would like to record our appreciation to the other Associations who have expressed their willingness to collaborate with us for the good of the trade as a whole.”

The case we report elsewhere in this issue, in which a beverage described as “flavoured and coloured cider,” was sold to the public as “British Wine” at more than double the price of the genuine product, raises issues of importance not only to the general public, but also to producers and public authorities concerned with the administration of the Food and Drugs Act and other measures protecting the interests of the consumer. What standards of quality can the public reasonably demand from the supplier of British Wines? Owing to the great variety of wines produced and the multiplicity of processes involved, it has not been found practicable in any part of the world to devise a universally acceptable definition of wine, but clearly the primary condition which entitles a beverage to this description is that it should be produced with the product of the vine as a basis, at least in the case of those varieties which are marketed under foreign appellations. The consumer may also reasonably expect, and the conscientious wine merchant ordinarily takes care to provide, a wine which has keeping qualities, such as can be guaranteed only in a beverage which contains enough alcohol to preserve it. The descriptions “Port Type” or “Sherry Type” which commonly appear on British Wine labels entitle the purchaser to expect a beverage as nearly approaching the quality and characteristics of the imported variety as the Customs and Excise Regulations permit. Imported Sherries or Ports, thanks to the right granted to producers to fortify them, normally contain some 20 per cent. of Ethyl Alcohol, or 35/36 degrees of proof spirit. This right of fortification is denied to British Wines, which, therefore, must contain a lesser degree of alcohol obtained by natural fermentation. The purchaser, nevertheless, expects a beverage of the same keeping qualities as the imported variety. It is true that other wines keep in bottle at much lower strengths, but table wines of this character are usually consumed the same day as they are opened, and are not, like Ports and Sherries and their substitutes, kept for days or weeks in the cupbdard or on the sideboard. In our opinion, such keeping qualities cannot be achieved by British Wine makers with less than 16½ per cent. of alcohol, or 28/29 degrees of proof spirit, with a corresponding content in sweetness which materially helps to preserve the wine. In the drier types a still higher degree of strength is necessary. While it is true that the foreign and colonial class of N.E.25 and N.E.27 proof spirit are imported into this country, these wines are greatly helped by their high degree of sweetness which the British Wine producer can only reach, under existing regulations, at the expense of the alcohol necessary to ensure the keeping qualities demanded by his customers. In any regulations framed to protect the consumer, the above considerations, which are based on experience and traditional practice, must be constantly borne in mind.

With the drastically changed pattern of the retail food trade in recent years in which the retailer's role has become little more than that of a provider of shelves for commodities, processed, prepared, packed and weighed by manufacturers, the defence afforded by the provisions of Section 113, Food and Drugs Act, 1955 has really come into its own. Nowadays it is undoubtedly the most commonly pleaded statutory defence. Because this pattern of trade would seem to offer scope for the use of the warranty defence (Sect. 115) in food prosecutions it is a little strange that this defence is not used more often.

Agriculture—pasturage—dairy herds—milk supply are links in a chain connecting the milk consumers, that is everybody in the kingdom, with the most indispensable and widespread industry. By a liberal extension of the term pasturage we may include such items as oats, peas, beans, roots, cattle cake and oil seeds. Milk is the chief of the protective foods, and during the last forty years or so the country has become increasingly milk conscious, if we may so express the recognition of its value embodied in such terms as “an exceptionally valuable food during the whole period of growth”; “a (nearly) perfect food”; “the surest protection from nutritional deficiencies”; “the A.1 priority food of the nation”; “a keystone to national nutrition.” These expressions have been used not for rhetorical effect. They are sober statements of fact by people well qualified by interest and by experience to speak authoritatively on matters concerning the milk supply of the nation. These and the like expressions may be noted in the almost endless series of pamphlets, addresses, reports, deputations, rules, and regulations embodying the opinions of public analysts, members of the medical and veterinary professions, livestock breeders, and Government Departments. The activities of all these bodies, it need hardly be said, is to guard public health and to comply with the public need for an adequate supply of milk. By “milk,” we submit, is meant fresh, clean cow's milk drawn from a healthy animal, free from pathogenic organisms, and containing the well‐known statutory minima for fat and for solids as laid down in the Sale of Milk Regulations. These minima are somewhat higher than the old Somerset House standard which they replace, but in the opinion of many, if not most, properly informed and unprejudiced persons are lower than the figures disclosed by the many thousands of analyses made over a long series of years by public analysts in the course of their official investigations. The official standard is much in favour of the vendor whether he be dairy farmer or ordinary shop retailer. Moreover, if a prosecution be instituted for failure to comply with these very moderate standards, the evidence is only presumptive, and if the defendant in the action can satisfy the court that the milk sold was of the same quality as was that yielded by the cow the action fails. Actions for this alleged offence are brought, as everyone knows, every day in all parts of the country. Added water is the usual basis of complaint. The gravity of the offence varies from slight negligence to gross carelessness, and in too many cases to deliberate fraud. The act is simple, demanding no great intelligence on the part of the actors. Anyone perusing the accounts of police court actions relating to milk will be struck by the dreary sameness of the proceedings, which is only slightly relieved by the variety of the explanations put forward to account for the presence of the extraneous water. The explanations are not in general accepted as excuses by the bench. The results of the usual analytical procedure are strongly confirmed by the freezing point (Hortvet) test, a test whose value does not seem in some cases to be appreciated to the extent it deserves. With regard to the explanations—apart from the leaky cooler, the new boy, and so forth—there is, we understand, an increasing tendency on the part of offenders in some parts of the country to throw the blame for poor milk on insufficient quantities or qualities of rationed concentrates and other foods. It will, we suppose, be generally admitted that the times are difficult and farmers have experienced to the full the special difficulties that affect their calling. Cattle cake and oil seeds are only to be obtained it is stated in some cases in insufficient quantities. The County Agricultural authorities have been urging farmers to sow peas, beans and oats to meet, as far as that may be possible, this shortage. The small man is, as is usually the case, the hardest hit. To plough up relatively small areas for the purpose just mentioned is uneconomic, and seeds are, like everything else, much more cosily than they used to be. The Ministry of Agriculture, in a recently issued leaflet, slate that “rations in general are on a lower scale” during the 1946–47 winter than during the winter before. “Rations will be subject to adjustment consequent upon any change in the supply position.” Rations depend on milk sales. The value of a unit of ration remains at one cwt. At present one unit of protein and three units of cereal will be granted for each 105 gallons of milk in excess of 15 gallons per cow per month subject to a deduction of 60 lb. of cereal per cow per month. Supplementary allowances —that is, a ration allowance in excess of the normal ration allowance for the time being—will have to be met from a limited discretionary reserve placed at the disposal of the county committees. “It will no longer be possible” says the Ministry “to meet the farmers' needs in full.” So that in general assistance of this kind will be restricted to growers of essential crops and to cases of exceptional difficulty. As the amount of rations is limited the grounds of the applicant's request for additional rations for his stock is subjected to enquiry before such excess rations are issued. There appears to be little need for comment. The whole business is straightforward and indicates the difficulties confronting stock breeders and agricultural authorities alike, at the present time. As far as we can judge, the small dairy farmer is the chief sufferer. Out of half‐a‐dozen cows yielding milk, if one should be off colour for the time being the average yield is likely to be injuriously affected. That, of course, will not happen should the herd be a large one. One cow out of a hundred will make no difference. A complaint has been sometimes made that excess rations could not be obtained from the County agricultural authority's reserve stock. If so, the circumstances must be very exceptional. The authority is in close touch with the dairy farmers in its district, and we understand that enquiry is made quickly with a pretty full personal knowledge of the applicant. The explanations that are sometimes given by the defendant in an action to account for poor quality milk being due to insufficient or improper feed does not seem to be generally accepted by those who try the case, and with good reason.

Sacrifice, integral to gift giving, remains unexplored and undertheorized in marketing. This paper aims to address this shortfall by analyzing the dynamics of sacrifice and theorizing how it serves as an engine of the gift chimney.

The ethnographic investigation of public ceremonial gift giving in sectarian Northern Ireland describes and interprets the complex nature of the gift.

The authors show that sacrifice is a plausible mechanism of the gift chimney and that the co-occurrence of monadic, dyadic and systemic giving in the same ritual acts as an accelerant.

The authors analyze how public ceremonial gift giving induces sectarian communities to risk convocation, enabling them to exorcize trauma sustained at one another’s hands and to build a platform for future cross-community cohesion in a context of ineffective institutional efforts.

Sacrifice propels circulation of the gift, creating a social bond between antagonists whose ethos of mutuality depends upon ritualized reciprocal recognition of entangled loss.

The observations in an article upon British wines which appeared in the January issue of the JOURNAL have occasioned the publication in The Wine and Spirit Trade Review of some comments endorsing views which we set forth, and also the publication in the same periodical of a letter addressed to the BRITISH FOOD JOURNAL, from Mr. G. Gordon Watt, of Messrs. Lamb & Watt, Ltd., in which he protests against certain views which he attributes to us, but which, in fact, are nowhere to be found in the article in question. The policy of this JOURNAL for the last nearly fifty years has always been to encourage and assist the producer of good and genuine products, and our duty to the public and to the honest manufacturer is to call attention to practices which we consider are not in the best interests of either. We do not underrate the position which the British wine industry has won for itself; the fact that in pre‐war years some six million gallons of these wines were produced and sold, sufficiently attests their popularity and the need which the industry meets, and undoubtedly it has played an important part during the war years in filling the gap created by the almost total exclusion of the importation of foreign wines for the British market. British wines are perfectly good and genuine products and occupy a legitimate position in the beverages of the country provided that they conform to the descriptions under which they are sold. In this connection we adhere to the opinion which we have already expressed, that where wines bear a foreign appellation, such as “Port Type,” “Sherry Type” or “British Sherry,” the purchaser is entitled to expect that the fruit of the vine is an essential part of the raw material used in the production of the wine. It has been suggested that it would be useful to both makers and consumers if some standard could be established for British wines which would prevent the sale under that description of concoctions which have none of the attributes of wine. In the event of standards ultimately being established, we are of the opinion that for the purposes of preservation it is desirable that wines of the Port and Sherry types should contain 28/29 degrees of proof spirit.

By the beginning of the war, Germany's over‐all self‐sufficiency in food had reached a level of approximately 83 per cent., on the peace‐time basis of 2,200—2,400 calories per person per day. In respect to some types of food, however, the situation was not satisfactory. For example, before the war she produced approximately 73 per cent. of fish requirements, 12 per cent. of corn, 50 per cent. of legumes, and 60 per cent. of fat within her own boundaries. The country could be fed at a reduced level by the produce raised within its own boundaries if food were perfectly controlled and evenly distributed. However, in practice, individual provinces were much less favourably situated in this respect. Western Germany, an area of relatively small and diversified farms, was critically dependent on the eastern provinces for its flour, grain, and potato supplies. It is clear that all German civilians could be fed at a uniform level of adequacy during a war only by control of the country's food supply at the national level and by the continued operation of the new transportation network of the country. For this reason the bombing of rail and inland water transportation facilities became such a serious threat to national uniformity in food distribution. Of the many kinds of centralised food processing industries known in the United States, only a few played an important role in the food supply of German civilians. The principal examples of these were grain milling, sugar production and refining, and the large bakeries of urban areas. The damage or destruction of these facilities, incidental to air attack on other industrial targets, seriously decreased their production capacity. Bombing destroyed the mills for processing 9 per cent. of the German rye output and 35 per cent. of the wheat output. Of the sugar refineries four plants producing 300,000 tons annually, were destroyed. This represents a 38 per cent. decrease in production of sugar. Similarly bombing of chemical plants was largely responsible for the decrease in the supply for fertiliser nitrogen. In 1939, 718,000 tons of fertiliser nitrogen were available, but by 1945 this had decreased to 140,000 tons. The significance of this destruction of facilities vital to the feeding of a country already on a border‐line diet is ominous. Reliable estimates indicate that aerial bombings destroyed 35 per cent. of Germany's total (approximately 460,000 square metres) cold storage capacity. The increased use of cold storage intensified their dependence on transportation and on the continuity of the power supply. Aerial attack, as a result, not only decreased usable cold storage space, but also seriously interfered with the operation of the remaining space by impeding shipments and interrupting sources of power. It was the constantly reiterated opinion of all food officials that the bomb destruction of the transportation network was the largest single factor contributing to the disruption of the food supply. Bulk shipments which had been carried on inland waterways were seriously impeded by the bombing of canals. Aerial attack against railway lines, bridges and terminal facilities caused widespread interruptions in service and destroyed rolling stock, freight en route and handling facilities at terminals. It is not possible at this time to state exactly in what measure the curtailment of the national diet contributed to the ultimate defeat of Germany. The evidence available indicates, however, that it was an important factor. There is in any case no doubt that strategic bombing is the major element contributing to the present shortage of food in Germany. It was not apparent that the Germans considered the vitamin and mineral content of food in determining the ration allowances of the people. Immediately with the beginning of the war, all the principal foods were rationed, so that the lack of recognition of the importance of the vitamin and mineral content of this ration actually was an additional point of vulnerability for the German diet. With a food economy so vulnerable it is not surprising to have found that the basic food rationing programme was abandoned early in 1945 when the destruction of transport and communications by the strategic air offensive attained major proportions. This necessitated falling back on the inadequate system of regional self‐supply. The destruction of large food stocks, processing plants and cold storage plants by bombing also contributed to the general deterioration of the German food supply. There is ample evidence for the conclusion that as a result of the strategic air offensive the nutritional demands for the continued health of the German people could not be met.