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Show 164 the distribution of food at meals and during the day, table manners, etc. He also gives a detailed description of infant diet. It is necessary to determine the amount of food consumed by specific groups and to deduce how much is consumed by each person. This must be done by investigations of various kinds depending upon the cultural level of the people. Dr. Ramos Espinosa suggests that it be done directly in the field, after selection of a group of representative families. In closing, the author says that food studies must necessarily be related with those of nutrition, and for this purpose the first step should be to set up tables of average weights of the inhabitants of each region according to age, sex, and racial group. Metraux, A. (Estados Unidos). "La Cuasa y el Tratamiento Magico de las Enfermedades entre los Indios de la Region Tropical Sud-Americana," America Indigena, IV No. 2 (April, 1944), Mexico, D.F., pp. 158- 164. English Summary: In all the tribes of tropical South America most diseases are conceived as the result of the intrusion of an object provoked by a sorcerer or a spirit. The magic missiles are thorns, splinters, bones, and insects which shamans carry inside their own bodies and which they shoot at their victims. The ailment may also be caused by a magic substance, a mysterious "poison," identical to the magic substance or vitality of the shaman which can be inoculated with fatal results into the body of a person. The souls of animals or plants are sometimes responsible for the critical condition of an individual. The notion of soul-loss as an explanation for diseases is specially widespread throughout the Andean region and the Gran Chaco, but rare in tropical South America. The treatment of diseases is performed by shamans who plunge themselves into a state of trance or drunkenness in order to communicate with spirits either to unmask the guilty ones or to learn from them the identity of the sorcerer. The cure, properly speaking consists mainly of massages, fumigations and suctions aimed at extracting the pathogenetic object. If the disease is the consequence of soul-loss, the shaman wanders to fetch the kidnapped or lost soul. Daniel Martinez, Pedro (Mexico). "Como Hacer Llegar la Higiene y la Assistencia Medica al Nino Indigena," America Indigena. IV No. 3 (July, 1944), Mexico, D.F., pp. 191-200. English Summary: This article states that Mexican country children receive medical care, but that this care is insufficient. It also states that there is |