I think it was Humphry Osmond who remarked many years ago that a sheep too far ahead of the flock is a wolf in sheep's clothing. I have been thinking about this again since I read the chapter by Albert V Szent-Gyorgyi, rediscovered by Jack Challem and published in the previous issue this journal. What an amazing document In this single lecture Szent-Gyorgyi envisioned the pattern of hypothesis and practice which is called orthomolecular medicine.

Here are two of his recommendations: (1) we must distinguish between the minimum dose required to prevent a deficiency disease (the basis for the RDAs) k for the optimum dose, that dose necessary to maintain optimum health. This dose must be determined by dealing with humans under the ordinary conditions of human stress, not on the basis of a few studies on animals on otherwise perfect diets, free from their usual stresses and free from the chemical pollutants we humans have to endure; (2) We must provide the nutritional, chemical, physical and social environment to which we have been adapted over millions of years of evolution. This is the most important working rule for all of our best zoos but is ignored for almost all of our human populations.