"APPALLING DIET"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22428, 26 May 1936, Page 12

"APPALLING DIET"

DOCTOR'S ATTACK hospitals and schools " DISGRACE TO OUR COUNTRY " [BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION] ■WELLINGTON, Monday "The diet given in our boarding schools is appalling. It is a standing disgrace on our young country and it produces more misery and disaster than is over thought of," said Dr. Ulric Williams, of Wanganui, in the course of a health lecture in Wellington. "But if there are places where the diet is even more appalling they are in our public hospitals." As an after-thought, Dr. Williams added: "Unless it were in the private hospitals." He concluded by saying that the diet in the modern hospitals could be "safely guaranteed to make a strong man ill." Dr. Williams is a son of ,the late Canon Williams. On roturning to Wanganui from England Dr. Williams established a large practice. Some three years ago he commenced to specialise along the lines of a dietitian, delivering lectures in which he intimated that he was against orthodoxy. He treated numerous patients suffering from all kinds of ailments, many, it is claimed, successfully. The number of his patients increased steadily, and a special hospital was opened. A great number of patients are being treated here, including many from outside districts. Dr. Williams advocates healthy living conditions as essential for curing ill-health, and states that our unhealthy condition is not due to germs, but obviously to wrong conditions of life that make ravages by germs possible. He is author of several publications 011 the right ways of living and dieting. Dr. Williams is opposed to operations.

OPINION IN AUCKLAND CRITICISM DISCOUNTED HEALTH OF SCHOOLBOYS The attack by Dr. Williams on hospital diets was discounted yesterday by the acting-medical superintendent of the Auckland Hospital, Dr. R. L. Wilson. Patients' food at the hospital, he said, was under the charge of two trained dietitians. A wide range of diets was required in the treatment of forms of illness, and individual diets had to bo varied from stage to stage in the patient's progress. The procedure was well established in most cases, but after a particular diet was charted a dietitian visited each patient and adjusted it as far as possible according to individual likes and dislikes. Any special directions from doctors were carefully carried out. Although the food had to go rather long distances from the kitchen to some of the wards, it was carried in insulated containers and altogether it was such as he would be quite satisfied to have in }m own home. "The physique of our boys is the best answer to criticism of this sort," said Mr. J. N. Peart, headmaster of King's College. "You have only to look at them to see that they are healthy and strong." He added that at King's College the dietary was carpfully supervised by the bursar and matron, and full records were kept. The school had its own cows and poultry and the bursar personally attended to the buying of fresh fruit and vegetables at the city markets. If the school medical officer or resident nursing sister considered that a boy needed more of anything—fruit or milk, for example—it was provided at once. Some English schools employed dietitians and went in for scientific analyses -of diets, but in New Zealand, with its excellent supplies of fresh foodstuffs, experience seemed to be a quite satisfactory guide.