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MALNUTRITION is still widely prevalent in children in many underdeveloped countries of the world, and a certain number show manifestations of vitamin A deficiency. Electroretinography in cases of vitamin A deficiency in children and adults has been extensively studied by Dhanda (1952Dhanda ( -1956. As vitamin A deficiency occurs mainly in children with severe malnutrition, it was considered desirable to study the retinal electrical potential in severely undernourished children so as to assess whether the features reported earlier could be considered as specific of avitaminosis A or not.The apparatus and the method employed in the present study were the same as used by Karpe (1945), except that the amplifier used here had a sensitivity of one millivolt =1 cm., instead of one millivolt = 2 cm. In each case a minimum of ten stimuli were given and mean b-potentials were noted. MaterialForty children with malnutrition aged between 7 and 12 years were studied. Younger children could not be included, because of the difficulty in obtaining adequate co-operation from them. All the children weighed less than 65 per cent. of the expected body weight (using charts of healthy English children for comparisonSheldon, 1955

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