CUTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS OF VITAMIN A DEFICIENCY IN CHILDREN

During the past eight months we have observed nine children, almost all of families on relief, attending the pediatric outpatient department, with cutaneous lesions of vitamin A deficiency similar to those described by Frazier and Hu¹ in Chinese soldiers, by Loewenthal² and by Nicholls³ in prisoners in Africa and India respectively, and in various parts of the world by other observers.⁴ In the United States Scheer and Keil⁵ recorded two cases of scurvy in which these lesions also were present and Jeghers⁶ described cutaneous manifestations in medical students that he had observed for impaired dark adaptation. Also Youmans and Corlette⁷ reported a series of cases in which these cutaneous lesions were present and Steffens, Bair and Sheard⁸ experimentally produced this dermatosis in a healthy human subject.

CLINICAL MANIFESTATIONS  The dermal lesions of our children were symmetrical and located chiefly on the