FRUIT AND HEALTH.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 225, 22 September 1924, Page 4

FRUIT AND HEALTH.

When that distinguished surgeon Sir William Arbuthnot Lane says that fruiteating is a necessity, not a luxury, everybody will agree with him, but there will be argument about his amplification of this, that it is "the only certain way of staying the rapidly-increasing plague of cancer, and innumerable other diseases, from which fruit-eating natives are free. - ' For doctors differ in nothing more than in their views about diet and disease. Review-

ing a recent book on cancer, a writer in Hie "Weekly AVestminster" says that the gist of it is that we should take exercise, eat brown bread rather than white, live largely on fruit and vegetables, and avoid constipation. Undoubtedly, says the reviewer, we should be healthier and happier if we followed these rules; "unfortunately, almost every medical man of experience knows quite well that plenty of people who sensibly live the kind of life recommended, contract cancer and ultimately die of it." Yet, as we have said, it will not be denied that if people ate more fruit ih-y would, generally speaking, be healthier. And, leaving savages out of account, people in temperate countries eat a good deal more fruit than they did long ago. Science has increased" the local supply of fruit, and vastly improved communication has brought to civilised communities the fruits of dis-

tant countries. The Englishman gets bananas from the West Indies, aud apples from Australia and New Zealand. Perhaps this increasing fruit habit has had something to do with tho prolongation of the average life, and the recent conclusion of an English authority that the general health of England is better to-day than .ever before. The main difficulty in getting people to eat more fruit is cost. It is not much use telling a wage-earner that his children should have an apple n. day, or more, when his family is large and apples are sixpence a pound.