DIET AND HEALTH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 227, 25 September 1930, Page 22

DIET AND HEALTH.

MEDICINE NOT AN EXACT SCIENCE. "Puzzled" appears worried at the difference of opinion amongst the medical fraternity. Medicine is as far from Ixi'ing an exact science as it could possibly be. Different schools of thought exist in different' Universities. Treatments are as opposite as the poles in some cases. To-day no man can master all the brandies of medicine: the specialist is a necessity, and even so, these specialists differ. The truth is the human body with its complicated organism -will need many, many more years of intricate careful study, before man has mastered its peculiarities; if he ever does. Why the doctor is asked to try to hold down a, position of infallibility, when Ins -is not only human, but has gained his knowledge from other humans, is beyond comprehension.. Medicine is not a priesthood as so many seem to think. The medico is a "human being, and old fogeys arc found amongst them just as among ordinary common humans. The Dr. Hutchison, mentioned is no young man. He published a -book on diet some time ago, which was very out of date. He has just recognised vitamins, after disputing their existence. Unfortunately, though books and films are censored, any news item is published without proper censoring by those in a position to check statements. A terrible lot of damage is done this way, and "Puzzled" is only one of thousands suffering for these published outbursts. The word used by Dr. Hutchison, which made his statement "news" was "crank."' A lucky or unlucky use of a word for him. We all love to hoar about "cranks." we know so many who are—in fact nearly everyone but ourselves is a "crank" over something. The very word was enough, and a few catch phrases used about vegetarianism helped to make it good reading—hence the cable. Now what did he say? "Milk no food"—rot. "Fruit not nutritious"— bunkum. Look at Colombo with its banana-fed coal heavers and the Arab at Port Said fed on dates. Dr. Hutchison speaks of calories: does he not know that calories were washed out years ago by anyone interested in diet? Perhaps he has just found it out. He says, "don't let's be herbivorous." Does he think the human is carnivorous ? If so he had better study our tooth formation and find out the scientific position. He says, "Let us all cat what we fancy." I ask those with children what a crop of illness we would have if we did. The youngsters to-day in medicine are awake to diet at last, and just as your farmer or trainer would howl with joy if you suggested any old food would do for his stock, so will the doctor of the future study first and last what you eat. Figures just published ,<how that one million out of six million jaiilclren in England are absolute crocks. This indicates something wrong. We nave changed our food more than anything. Our clothes and houses are the' same; our food is quite different. Dentistry, a branch of medicine, is realising rapidly that dental troubles are dietetic, and 30 years hence there will be fewer of these dreaded gentlemen about. Dental decay is being controlled not by children eating what they like, but what they need. I would suggest that "Puzzled" try by hook or crook to live another thirty years. Perhaps medicine, and this includes the dentist may be more sure of itself by then. ' I COMMON-SENSE DIET.