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There is evidence from animal experiments that the requirements for certain of the vitamins are increased by pregnancy. However, there is little precise information with respect to changes during pregnancy and lactation in women's needs for vitamins. The recent development of reliable methods for determining the amount of vitamin C in tissues and in biologic fluids has offered opportunity for studies during human pregnancy and lactation. A number of observations have appeared in the literature of the past three years concerning the ascorbic acid content of maternal blood, of fetal blood and of the placenta, although no one seems to have followed a series of pregnant women consistently through pregnancy and delivery to obtain related and comparative values.Neuweiler,1 using Gabbe's technic with modifications, reported a higher content of ascorbic acid in blood from the umbilical vein than in that from the umbilical artery (1.9 to 3.6 versus 0.7 to 2.1 mg. per hundred cubic centimeters). On the basis of this observation and of earlier work in which he found a considerable amount of ascorbic acid in the placenta, Neuweiler -could not accept the claim of Rohmer and Bezssonoff 3 that the human fetus can synthesize ascorbic acid. Abt, Farmer and Epstein,4 using indophenol blue titration of a tungstic acid filtrate, reported identical values for the reduced ascorbic acid of From the

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N. Y., November 11, 1953. This is a discussion of the reliability and validity, of the dietary intake data of children between the ages of one and six years, in a longitudinal study of health and development.The data presented is from the longitudinal study of health and development of children being carried out under the supervision of Harold C. Stuart, M.D., professor of maternal and child health and head, Department of Maternal and Child Health, School of Public Health, Harvard University. This study was begun under a grant from the General Education Board of the Rockefeller Foundation; carried forward under grant from the James Foundation; and now being completed under grant from the Public Health Service, supplemented by grants from the Nutrition Foundation, Inc., and from the Association for the Aid of Crippled Children. 1015The periodic interview as a scientific instrument for measuring the average daily protein intake of the child is subjected to sharp critical scrutiny and statistical examination. The accuracy of this instrument needs constant assessment, the writers indicate.