PLUNKET NURSES, ETC., DUNEDIN BRANCH.

Otago Witness, Issue 3672, 29 July 1924, Page 63

PLUNKET NURSES, ETC., DUNEDIN BRANCH.

NTTP.SEs’ SERVICES FREE. Nurses Thomson, Scott, Ewart (telephone 116). Mathieson (telephone 3020). Society’s Rooms: Jamieson’s Buildings, 76 Lower Stuart street (telephone 116), and 315 King Edward street, South Dunedin (telephone 3020). Office hours, daily from 2 to 4 p.m. (except Saturday and Sunday); also 125 Highgate, Roslyn, Monday and Thursday from 2 to 4 p.m. Outstations: Baptist Church, Gordon road, Mosgiel, Tuesday afternoons from 2 to 4 P.m. ; Municipal Buildings, Port Chalmers, Wednesday afternoons from 2 to 4 p.m. Secretary, Miss G. Hoddinott, Jamieson’s Buildings, Stuart street (telephone 116). Karitane-Harris Baby Hospital, Anderson s Bay (telephone 1985). Matron, Miss Buisson. Demonstrations every Wednesday afternoon from 2.30 to 3.30. Training Institution for Plunket Nurses and Karitane Baby Nurses. Visiting hours, 2 to 4 p.m., vVadr.esday, Friday, and Sunday. BROWN BREAD. The following letter from the far North was received recently: “You have advocated that the people in New Zealand should use brown bread —particularly the children. I want to draw your attention to the fact that it is nearly impossible to get it. “I am at present settled at W——, and it. is only very seldom, and then as a favour, that a loaf of brown bread can be procured. It is just the same at Kawhia and Kaikohe, and other places I have been settled at. “I would ask you to urge the Government to pass aa Act compelling bakers to furnish as much brown bread as is required, and to have a heavy penalty if they do not. If every baker had to have a license, which would be liable to be forfeited unless sufficient brown bread were provided, it would meet the case. There should also be a penalty if any chemicals are used. The brown bread that is made has very little bran in it. “So far as I am personally concerned, my health suffers severely if I use white bread only, and no doubt there are thousands of others the same.” COMMENT. We heartily agree, for the most part, with the writer of this letter, and wish that some provision could be made by which a regular supply of good brown bread, made wholly or largely of wheatmeal (which is no doubt what our correspondent means —not bread made with white flour and bran), would be available for all of us. Ho we-ver, this can scarcely be achieved by legislation. A much better plan would be to bring it about by the education of the people. For instance, if our correspondent could convince all his “neighbours” at W that a fair proportion of brown bread was much better for them and iheir families than white bread only, the baker, in his own interest, would be bound to supply tlie article that was wanted. One cannot expect bakers to be subject to the caprice of a public demanding brown bread one clay and then taking none for days or weeks. Over and over again we have heard that bakers have had a quantity of brown bread left on their hands, because their customers did not want any on that particular day. If white bread is left over it can be disposed of for sausage-making, etc., but there is no sale for stale brown bread. However, if the people in a particular locality guaranteed to take a supply of brown bread regularly, there is no doubt that the baker would fall in with their wishes, provided a sufficient amount were wanted to make it worth while to produce it. Chemicals and Bran. With regard to the use of chemicals in bread-making, there ore stringent provisions under the ‘Foods and Drugs xAct” to protect the public in this matter. The quantity of added bran included in brown bread will, of course, vary according to the recipe used. There should he none. Bran has not much nourishment in it; its use is more in the nature of a laxative, and too large a proportion may cause indigestion and irritation of the bowels. The main point about brown bread is that it should be made largely of wholemeal. which contains the “germ” and the vitamines. Both of these have been almost refined out of white flour. There is no doubt that it is desirable to use a fair proportion of whole-meal bread, and probably the health of the community would tend to be improved if white flour were entirely replaced by standard flour —in which wheat is made to yield 80 per cent, of flour instead of only 70 per cent. The 10 per cent, (screened out in the case of the more refined flour and given to the pigs and fowls because people perversely prefer their flour to be chalky white instead of cream coloured) contains the more vital part of the grain. Don’t Be Over-ridden by One Idea. Still, people must not become one-ideaed, especially if they hope to influence their fellows in the right direction. Instead of centring all attention on the bread Question, parents should he brought to realise that, whatever bread is used, the highest standard of health and vitality and the best state of the teeth, as well as the most perfect digestion and nutrition, can be established and maintained by the daily use of a fair proportion of fresh fruit and fresh vegetables, such as lettuce, mustard, and cress, etc. —which in the case of children can be sandwiched between slices of bread. — thus promoting active mastication while supplying abundance of vitamines, even though the bread used be white. Lack op Fruit and Vegetables. One of the strongest arguments in favour of brown bread is that people won’t take the trouble to provide a sufficiency of fruit and vegetables, even when they are cheap

and abundant: and even where they arc on the table comparatively few people nowadays will do the extra work needed to chew a sufficiency thoroughly—partly on account of laziness and partly on account of the fact that the best, artificial teeth are unable to exert more than a sixth of the crushing and grinding power naturally and pleasurably exercised when the individual has a set of good, sound, natural molars. A Vicious Circle. Most unfortunately for “mankind in the making” we- have got into a vicious circle—the bad Habit of taking devitalised and artificially ground or comminuted food instead of the simpler, plainer, fresher, and more wholesome foodstuffs which can scarcely be swallowed without honest chewing and mastication. The babies bom of ill-fed women, who won’t and often can’t take enough exercise on account cf cramped, deformed feet, painful corns, and preposterous shoes, give birth to children handicapped at the start because of tile relatively poor development of jaws and teeth. Further, if the child is not breast-fed for the full term, matters are made a degree worse, for the second set. of teeth, which are being actively formed from birth onwards deep down under the first set. Suppose this to be a. baby girl, wliat prospect has she as a. mother of the future, handicapped by her mother’s legacy long before birth and ever afterwards. The ideal bodily form and stamina is not to be expected of such women with their decayed and aching teeth, largely replaced by artificial ones, and suffering from indigestion and constipation, partly due to this direct cause and partly to the consequent disinclination and distaste for regular, daily, active out-door exercise, wet. or fine.. Motherhood has indeed got into a vicious circle 1 Never Too Late to Mend. However, it, is open to every woman to redeem tho past if she will only resolve even now, at the eleventh hour, to live and act in accord with the simple needs for health and fitness which is indeed essential for sustained happiness and full enjoyment of life for herself in the long run, apart altogether from the fate of her familv.

How would it be to pass a law making ample daily exercise and possibly the cold bath and a good rub down compulsory!