The Waipawa Mail. Published, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Thursday, December 17, 1903. APPENDICITIS AND WHITE BREAD.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXV, Issue 4596, 17 December 1903, Page 2

The Waipawa Mail. Published, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Thursday, December 17, 1903. APPENDICITIS AND WHITE BREAD.

Many theories are afloat as to the cause of the seemingly prevalent and latter-day complaint of appendicitis. But a very probable cause, which has apparently escaped notice, is thus referred to by “ Science Siftings ” : Does white flour cause appendicitis ? Some doctors say so. They argue in this way: “ Years ago, when the whole wheat used to be ground into flour, people did not have appendicitis. Now, when the wheat is ground fine and the coarsest parts are fanned out, people are having appendicitis very frequently.” There may be some truth in this, and perhaps a great deal of truthiin it. Most of the flour that is used for food to-day has had the life ground but of it. A little starch and a trace of gluten are left. The bran, which is so useful in stimulating the bowels to their nomal vermicular movement, is entirely blown out. The life-giving phosphates that reside near the outside of the husk and in the chit of the wheat are also eliminated. Ground to death—that is what is the matter with flour. Mix up such flour, and it becomes about as difficult to make bread out of as plaster of paris. So it is that bakers to make light bread must use all sorts of chemicals—alum, ammonia and other strong mixtures to get the stuff to rise. If the whole wheat was ground as it ought to be, and then made into good, palatable, wholesome, big, brown leaves, much of the dyspepsia and bowel complaints and appendicitis would disappear. White bread makes bad breath, bad tempers, and bad digestion. For ssthetic people the white bread is preferred, because it looks better. Nice, spongy and milk white I Take a loaf of it as big as your head, clasp it in two hands, and a good strong man can reduce it to the size of a stone, and it will be nearly as indigestible. It looks nice on the table so fluffy and light. A hungry man can eat the stuff all day without appeasing his appetite, but he acquires a first-class case of constipation. Whole wheat bread does not make such a nice ornament for the sideboard as white bread, but it has got more sustenance in it. With a stomach full of white bread a man feels like an Anarchist full of cheap whiskey. No wonder our forefathers were so healthy. They ate whole wheat bread, ground at the neighbouring mill, bran and all. No wonder we have so much bad temper and domestic infelicity nowadays. Everybody is full of white wheat bread, and its dire consequences. For a while certain authorities tried to lay appendicitis to grape seeds, and kept right on stuffing themselves with white bread. Grape seeds will not work any

,more. It is,♦says an eminent authority, those abominable wads of white flour and strong chemicals called bread that keep the surgeons all busy operating for appendicitis. Whole wheat flour is the remedy. The millers are beginning to appreciate this. They are recognising the fact that they ought to have whole wheat flour. Mills are being constructed in England on purpose to serve this end. Get some whole wheat flour and make some bread once, and see how it will taste to eat the bread of your forefathers—the bread that made the brawn that hewed the homes out of the wilderness and wastes of a wild country. Get some of this kind of bread in you, and you will not need to take pepsin powders or constipation pills, and your chances of getting into a hospital to undergo an operation for appendicitis will not be very good.