RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30289, 15 November 1963, Page 31

RANDOM REMINDER

DAY OF THE PILL

There will be considerable interest in the experiment being staged in California in which 18 prisoners have, for the last 10 weeks or so, been living solely on synthetic chemicals and distilled water. An interim report by a research scientist. Dr. Chan, said the men were in better shape than when the experiment started. For some years men have been wondering what it will be like when, after a hard day s work, they go to the local hostelry for their alcohol injection, and then repair to their homes to sit down to a pill on a plate. Dr. Chan says that the experiment, designed as a search for a new food for astro-

nauts, could produce such benefits as absolute weight control, the elimination of malnutrition, spoil-proof food for civil defence shelters, and an answer to the problems of feeding an overpopulated world. These are minor gains, admittedly, but they open new doors for mankind. No agricultural or animal products are needed in the process, so that in the years ahead. New Zealand, as an example, may be able to convert its farmlands into golf courses, and race tracks. The farmers will not need to farm, and will have to find something else to complain about. Restauranteurs will be out of business: wining and din-

ing will not be much fun, in tablet form. And all those people busy at producing packaged meals will have to find something else to do. The shipping companies will suffer, and the wharf workers . . . there is no end to the effects this may have. The Day of the Pill will, however, be welcomed by new brides and prospective suicides. There will be no questions about ability to cook, for the brides. And for the suicides, an overdose of pills will be so much more easy and pleasant than old-fashioned ideas about surfeits of lampreys. etc. We're still all right, so far; but this may be our last real Christmas dinner.