An Analysis of Subjectivity in the Clinical Examination in Nutrition

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Abstract
Significant variations were found in the observations made by a group of physicians trained in clinical nutrition, using a set of objective standards, when they examined soldiers for signs possibly indicative of nutritional deficiency. In some cases, patterns of performance were noted, several physicians tending to find particular signs with unusual frequency or unusual rarity. Such observations emphasize the inexactness of clinical data dealing with signs of deficiency diseases, and an uncertainty in the clinical evaluation of nutrition. This was not true of advanced states of deficiency syndromes, where agreement was often unanimous.