Note 17 — Chapter II · PATHOGENESIS AND ETIOLOGY

It would seem, however, that the growing infant requires relatively more antiscorbutic vitamine than does the adult. We know that its caloric requirement is fully a quarter to a third greater. In regard to vitamine, judgment cannot be based on experimental evidence, but on comparative figures. For example, unless we take this viewpoint, we must believe that, as an infant of six months weighing 15 pounds requires 15 c.c. of orange juice daily to furnish its antiscorbutic quota, an adult weighing 160 pounds requires 180 c.c. daily—the juice of three good-sized oranges. On this basis the adult would require six quarts (6000 c.c.) of fresh milk daily, twelve times the minimum requirement for an infant, which is one pint (500 c.c.) a day. These figures are manifestly too high.