Food Science: You Are What You Eat

Food Science: You Are What You Eat — page 5
6 Chapter One Rickets Putrid Meat AND PLUMPY’NUT It wasn’t until the 1920s scientists discovered vitamin D even in the form of artificial sunlight was necessary to prevent rickets In approximately 500 BCE Greek scholar Herodotus was inspecting the skeletons of soldiers killed in battle a century earlier in the Egyptian town of Pelusium He noticed the skulls of the Persian soldiers were so thin a small pebble could crush them The skulls of the Egyptian soldiers however were so strong only a large rock caused damage When Herodotus inquired about the unusual observation townspeople provided little information The only difference they could remember was the Persians wore turbans while the Egyptians fought bareheaded exposing their heads to the sun What caused the Persian skulls to crack so easily while all the Egyptian skulls were strong More than 2,000 years later in 1650 CE Professor Francis Glisson studied at Cambridge University in England He was investigating a disease affecting many