A Great Dietitian Lived to 86

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 55, 6 March 1943, Page 8

A Great Dietitian Lived to 86

Forced by war rationing to what experts have described as the healthiest diet in the country’s history Britons hardly noticed the passing this week of the man who'first made them dietconscious. Sir William Arbuthnot Lane died 14 years short of the century, which he declared proper diet might eventually make the average span of life. He supported both sterilisation of the unfit and euthanasia, declared publicly that njany doctors were already painlessly ending their own and patients’ lives, to prevent continued suffering from agonising maladies. Lane, whose books were banned in Eire, is believed to have thought suicide justifiable in certain circumstances. Just before his death he declared he would not hesitate to end his life if ho were suffering from an incurable disease, such as cancer. Lane on Food. Sir Arbuthnot Lane was once one of Britain’s most brilliant surgeons. Fifteen years ago, after performing an intestinal operation necessitated by incorrect eating, he swore he would never operate again, would devote his ability to the spreading of knowledge which would prevent the necessity of cutting people open. He resigned from the B.M.A. in order to “be free to approach the public without control,” formed a new health society, plugged constantly in London newspapers his ideas on dieting.

To Britons seeking long life, Lane gave the following advice: Drink several glasses of water before breakfast, and drink alcohol, sensibly, if you wish. “A glass of beer is better than a pint of tea.” Keep slim, because paunches fill graves. “I can tell when a' man is going to die by one look at his paunch.” Diet sensibly, and then the only patients in hospitals will be those who are smashed up on the roads (Lane himself was involved in a blackout accident in 1940, refused to enter hospital). Dance your way to health, dance every night. Drink milk, cat fruit and vegetable® and wholemeal bread. This was a typical pre-war Lane diet: Breakfast, cereal, potato cakes, poached egg, wholemeal bread, butter, honey; Lunch, onion soup, macaroni, cheese, vegetable salad, fresh fruit/ cheese, wholemeal bread, butter; Dinner, lisli or meat, spinach, potatoes in jacket, one other vegetable, fruit juice, sliced apple. Lane on Marriage. As a general recipe for happiness Lane recommended plenty of greens, plenty of sunshine, plenty of work. He added one important proviso, a wife without indigestion, “because a woman with indigestion becomes a nagging wife.” Lane, who claimed that no marriage should go on the rocks once it had lasted five years, was twice married,

the first time, for 50 years, to the “ideal wife,” who died in 1934. A year later, aged 79, he married his son-in-law’s sister, spent his second honeymoon on the Amazon River. He believed brides should be “fed properly, and developed jdiysically for at least three months before marriage.” Of women, Lane said: More ivomcn dio oil the altar of beauty than in the causo of all religions throughout the world. The secret of a good complexion i 3 brimstone and treacle. Brunettes yield quickly to infection and disease, blondes resist them, but red-heads have the most powerful resistance of all to illness. He claimed that women were more ■' intelligent, more progressive than men, that Frenchwomen made the best wives, because they v/erc more understanding. English girls were /‘hopeless,” be said. A Chinese who deserted his ship at Wellington in 1934 and had unlawfully stayed in New Zealand since appeared before Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M.. He was Chan Sim, aged 52, carpenter, and lie pleaded guilty to ship desertion, unlawfully landing in New Zealand and making a false statement when registering as an alien. Mr. Winstone, who appeared for accused, said accused had left a Dutch tanker and worked in a market garden in Timaru. When his Chinese employer died, accused took over his papers. While working at Oliakune, he registered as an alien by using his deceased employer's poll tax certificate and name. He had been working in Auckland since as a carpenter | and had in no way attempted to evade the police. Accused w r as of good character, law-abiding, abstemious and a supporter of the Salvation Army. A fine of £2O w r as inflicted. !