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In volume 17 of the World Review of Nutrition and Dietetics published in 1973 there is a paper by S.C. Hsu which gives details of the changes that took place in the diet and the nutritional status of the population of Taiwan between 1960 and 1970. During the course of this decade enormous improvements were achieved in agricultural productivity leading to a major increase in the amount of food available to the population. Detailed studies of the diet which the people ate and of their nutritional status enabled an assessment of changes on the public health to be made. At the beginning, the weight and stature of the children were less than at the end and, whereas in 1960 riboflavin deficiency in the adult population, indicated by the presence of angular stomatitis, was observed in 78 per cent of the men and women examined, by 1970 the figure had fallen to 17 per cent. A number of other signs were observed showing that as the food supply of the island gradually improved, undernutrition, anaemia and vitamin deficiency became less common in parallel. On the other hand, by 1970, heart disease ranked first among the causes of mortality whereas it had been fourth in the 1950's and the incidence of gout showed a marked increase.