ATE “CHERRIES” AND BECAME BLIND
SOLDIERS IN NEW GUINEA
London, Dec. 2b Twenty-seven soldiers who ate “cherries” in New Guinea and became totally blind as a result, have arrived back in Britain, according to Mr. C. D. Torvell, scientific adviser io the Forces in the Far East, in a speech to the Liverpool Rotary Club. Mr. Torvell said science so far had found no means of restoring the sight. The nickname for fruit was "finger cherry.” Cooked it tasted like an ordinary cherry. Eating one or two caused no harmful effects, but as many as nine or ten produced total blindness within a few Hours. The Army authorities, when they di covered this, destroyed . as many “cherry,” trees as possible with arsenic. The peculiar properties of the trees were realised on\- at the end of 1942.
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Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 302, 22 December 1945, Page 5
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136ATE “CHERRIES” AND BECAME BLIND Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 302, 22 December 1945, Page 5
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