SCIENCE SIFTINGS

New Zealand Tablet, 14 April 1921, Page 46

SCIENCE SIFTINGS

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j V -V’ Ii Jet, ■. 7 ' ' //" ////: ''”V ' Jet is a sort |of > lignite or -. anthracite, often cut and;polished, which has the peculiarities in weight and - texture of the hardest kind of anthracite. It has been used .since before historic times and was. common ' in the bronze age, from which times have come jet beads, buttons, rings, armlets and other ornaments. The Whitb Race in'the- Tropics. . At the last Australasian Medical Congress, held at Brisbane, a sub-committee reported on the effect of the tropical climate upon the white’ race. : ' Its • conclusion was that with proper precautions, white settlers may thrive in hot climates better than is . generally believed ; but that under present conditions, their health in tropical Australia is deteriorating. ’ Neurasthenia causes 25 per cent, of the invalidity ; ' but climate is not the sole reason for. this. Nervous diseases are partly owing to changed conditions of living. Their increased frequency where white and colored races live in contact, whether in the torrid' or the temperate zone, is ascribed to the fact that under such conditions the whites'especially white womendo not perform the usual amount of physical labor, or take in its place sufficient physical exercise. The Congress also stressed the importance of a proper diet in the tropics, and blamed the excessive use of alcohol for part : of the : present evils. - ; v •:.;■/* .jh Should We Be Vegetarians? The aged controversy whether man ought to be a carnivorous .or a herbivorous animal - will probably prove immortal, for whatever evidence is•, produced is always open to argument (observes Everyday Science). But the vegetarians have . recently suffered a blow to one of their theories man . could not. live and be healthy on a diet of meat alone. The fact that the Eskimos of Alaska are dying out was claimed by them as partly due to their diet of meat and fish, but their opponents declare, that they are decreasing partly because their diet is no longer exclusively . meat, they having learned to eat bread and vegetables and fruit, which, do not suit them so well. K/--// And Stefansson’s last expedition, which lived for several years on end in the Arctic regions, goes to show that not only Eskimos, .but whites can live and thrive with no other food than meat and fish.'Dr/Jenness, of Oxford, the anthropologist of. the . expedition, declares that the Eskimos of the Arctic are the healthiest primitive people to be found anywhere, free of the white man’s diseases, and living, in spite of the climate, to the age of 75 and over. Another member of the expedition, who was a vegetarian when he started , \ changed his views. as well as his diet. It was Stefansson’s theory that he could “live on the _country” without burdening his sledges with supplies of tinned foods. They did so successfully, and, what is more, they liked it, and did not welcome the change back to' a “civilised” diet when the expedition,; returned. They met white men who had . lived in the north- for 12 or 15 years on meat and fish only, , and had never had a serious illness. . ~■ ~ One fact that emerged was the necessity of fat. The Eskimos eat much blubber and seal oil with their meat. Stefansson. has found that 151 b. of lean meat a day are. barely enough to satisfy hunger in the Arctic, but that half a pound of fat with 2; or 31b of lean is -plenty. % ; i . ' ■ ' ■ : ■ V'-' ’ r'.'j :> :V. mno-’. "" ■ ■•;! nr.urr;.