THE BANANA AGAIN

Several years ago we called attention to the banana as an undervalued source of nutriment.³ The defense of this fruit, which ought to be available at comparatively low cost in times of normal commerce and transportation facilities, almost invariably provokes protests from persons who maintain that the banana is a cause of indigestion and a treacherous dietary component which is at best to be looked on as a luxury, harboring insidious dangers to alimentation. Since our earlier comments in which the fallacies of the still current prejudice against the banana were exposed, several investigations, notably those by A. R. Rose and others at the New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital, have served to fortify the wider use of the banana as a wholesome, palatable and nutritious article of food. The latest of these dietary studies⁴ has even gone so far as to put beyond criticism the appropriateness