Folate requirement in pregnancy.

economic strata and are often residents of rural areas. Diet lacks high-class proteins and consists mostly of cereals and a small quantity of pulses. Very low levels of total serum proteins and albumin are noted in hospitalized patients. The presumptive evidence of protein malnutrition and deprivation is strong, unlike the cryptogenic types in Britain. Less than a quarter of patients give a history of jaundice. Presuming that all jaundice in the past is due to infectious hepatitis, the actual percentage may be much less, as pallor of anaemia due to ankylostomiasis is often wrongly described as icterus by these patients, as they are not good witnesses of their past events. Further, infectious hepatitis is more common in cities, but cirrhotics are mostly drawn from villages. It is therefore likely that viral hepatitis may be of even lesser importance in causation of cirrhosis in India than in England. A majority of patients, 55 to 75%, show a post-necrotic pattern of hepatic tissue.-I am, etc., B. L. AGARWAL.Moti Lall Nehru Medical College. Allahabad, India.