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each of these examinations some small changes
were thought by the clinical observers to have
occurred in a few of the children. These minor
changes were subsequently found to be equally
distributed between the experimental and control
groups Altogether 33 children went through the
whole course and were available on the last day
of study 14 children had had the vitamin tablets
and 19 the control tablets.

Clearly, no significant change was produced
by the vitamin tablets. It is possible that the
condition would have improved had we used larger
amounts of the vitamins or more prolonged treatment.
However epithelial lesions due to vitamin
deficiencies tend to improve within a few days with
quite moderate amounts of vitamin: the administration
to subjects showing tongue or skin lesions of
3 mg rib of lavin daily for 10 days, or 9 mg daily for
5 days was sufficient to restore to normal the
tongues in about half the subjects and the skin
changes in about three quarters of the subjects
(Yudkin, 1946). We therefore incline to the alternative
view that the tongue signs were not due to
deficiency of any of the vitamins that we
administered thiamine, nicotinic acid, riboflavin,
pyridoxine or ascorbic acid
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are indebted to the teachers who so conscientiously
administered the tablets to Messrs
Roche Products who supplied the vitamin and
placebo tablets to Dr Geoffrey Taylor who kindly
visited the schools with some of us to demonstrate
the sorts of lesion that he had in mind' and above
all to the volunteers themselves
Taylor, G (1966) Lancet, i 926
Yudkin, J (1946) J trop med Hyg 49, 83.
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