MAGNESIUM IN NUTRITION

In recent years numerous quantitive studies have greatly enhanced our understanding of the influence of mineral elements in animal economy. The belief that magnesium is essential for growth in the higher plants was confirmed in 1906, when Willstätter discovered that it forms an integral part of the chlorophyll molecule. Until 1932, however, when Kruse and his co-workers¹ published their observations on magnesium deficiency in the rat, the indispensability of this element for the animal organism had not been clearly established.

The extent to which a deficiency of magnesium may occur in the human dietary is not definitely known. Furthermore, the nature of the pathologic changes that might be expected to occur as a result of a deficiency of magnesium has only of late been disclosed by experimental studies on animals. Duckworth² has recently presented the symptomatology of experimental magnesium deficiency. The fragmentary evidence available indicates that one effect