Recent interest in the relation of the consumption of fat to atherosclerosis has recalled an observation made many years ago of an interesting dietary peculiarity of the Negro of the southern United States, i. e., his extremely high intake of pork and pork products. Dietary factors among peoples of different races and geographic locations have often been incriminated as a cause for variations in racial distribution of certain diseases. Of particular interest is the appreciably higher incidence of hypertension in the Negro than in the white man of the southern United States and the greater frequency of hypertension, arteriosclerosis, and cardiovascular disease, in general, in the North American than in the African Negro.1-11 Definite etiologic relations between diet and these diseases have not yet been unequivocally established, but circumstantial evidence can be offered.
The pork-eating habit of the Negro was evaluated by interviewing patients on the wards and in