NEWSPAPER EATERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 89, 14 April 1923, Page 19

NEWSPAPER EATERS.

GIRL "WHO COULD NOT RESIST SALT. Dr. W. Saltan Fenwick gave a "ectnre some time ago ln London on the "Eccentricities of Diet," and told of come people who were known to medical men as papereaters —usually children. They would scrape paper off the walls to satisfy their craving, but their favourite food was newspaper. The effect was the formation of sodden balls of paper in tbe stomach, which resulted sometimes ln appendicitis, consumption of the bowels, and other deadly complaints. Ginl hair-eaters were referred to. Young girls got Into the habit of chewing wisps ot their own hair, or the ends of their "pigtails," while reading, and the habit sometimes persisted. In the stomach of one woman was found a ball of hair 41b In weight. Dressmakers, and mattress and mat makers, were liable to eat cotton, string, or whatever else they might be working with. A boy employed at making cocoa matting died with lib of cocoa nut fibre In his stomach. Among varnlshers and polishers there were those who drank varnish and polish in large quantities, usually affecting the spirituous kind, with the result that enormous hard stones were formed in their stomachs. Dr. Fenwick told of people who plastered their food with salt, and never left

the dinner table without finishing up the salt-cellar.

One girl who devoured Immense quantities on every possible occasion, emptying every salt-cellar on the tat"c at each meal, would Increase aa much as ten pounds in ■weight in twenty-four hours, and was frequently unable to wear a dress that had been quite loose for her the previous day.