Meat and Disease.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume IX, Issue 1199, 26 February 1902, Page 4

Meat and Disease.

In the course of an articlo on this subject in fciharland’s New Zealand J'lumal for February, Dr F. A. Monckton gives examples from his personal experience of the fact that over eating of meat induces lumbago, gout, rheumatism, headaches a d lassitudes. He very naivily concludes with the narration of an incident in the early life of New Zealand, which illustrates the value of vegetables to save life. He says: “ When the Invercargill to Dunedin railway was being built, a shipload of Brogden’s immigrants were landed at tbu BluA' in the middle of winter, and as they consisted of laborers, with their wives and families, they were conveyed to the sight of their work, where tents l. d been erected for their accommodation near the Jlataura. As surgeon to the line, I visited them, and in a few days found they were breaking out with scurvy. Fresh meat was no good to them as their gums were spongy, and teeth loosening, and the swellings and sores on different parts showed they were in a very bad state. 1 enquired for limejuice or vegetables, but noue were to be had. The few ounces of citric acid that I had in my medicide chest was nothing among such s. crowd, and though I sent urgently to Dunedin, yet it was but a little place, and I seemed to have exhausted their resources when I received two paltry bottles of lemon syrup. It was dreadful to see those men, women and children getting rotten, to feel helpless. 1 was making frantic inquiries, when someone told me that in a north-west direction, from a certain point, he had seen what looked like turnips in the distance. I rode off and came upon a splendid patch of rape. I interviewed the owner, who refused to sell, as lie would be wanting it. 1 pressed hard and poured rut my tale, when ke caught my excitement and bellowed out, “ Sandy, you big loon, tell Jock and the Dodger to cut a load of that rape, and get the dray and take it to where the doctor tells ye!” I had had an awful strain, and nearly broke down at the sudden reaction, but the hospitable call to “ tak’ a drop ” pulled me together, and after feeding my patients upon boiled rape live or six times a day their mouths were soon in a position to masticate meat, and they all recovered, but it was a narrow escape from having to inaugurate an immigrant's cemetery.”