Housing
In outports, people built their own houses and could keep them repaired if they could afford to. But houses were shut up tight in the winter. Diseases like tuberculosis and the flu pass easily from person to person in closed spaces.

Food
Many people built root cellars to keep their vegetables fresh. Some people also kept a cow or a goat for milk, but these animals only gave milk for part of the year. Milk was often made into butter because butter keeps better than fresh milk. But butter is only made with milk fat. It does not have the calcium and protein that children need to grow.

Section Three
Looking Ahead: Strange Diseases

When Miss Rogers visited mothers and children in St. John's in 1918, she found that some children had diseases called rickets and scurvy. These diseases are almost never seen in Newfoundland today. Many people have never even heard of them. They are not caused by bacteria or viruses. You can not catch them. These are deficiency diseases. They only happen when people do not eat well for a long time. When people do not get the vitamins and minerals that their bodies need, they get sick. (Deficiency means that something is missing.)

Because they are growing, children need more vitamins and minerals than adults. So children are more likely to get deficiency diseases. Now, we know that children who had rickets, beriberi and scurvy were starving. Here is some information about deficiency diseases.

What Is BeriBeri?
Beriberi happens when people do not get enough vitamin Bi. This vitamin is found in fresh vegetables and whole grains, such as whole wheat bread and cereals. Beriberi makes muscles weak. After a long time, the muscles waste away. People with beriberi have problems with coordination, so it is hard for them to work. (People who have problems with coordination are more likely to fall, and their muscles do not always do what they want them to.) If beriberi goes on for a long time, it can cause heart failure and death.