Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-05-26
PENITENTIARY EXPERIMENTS
SHOW RESULTS OF REFINED FOODS

in order that they might serve their
life terms in preference to continuing
further the sufferings they under
went.
one of the pardoned convicts, w.
H. English, describing his experience
on the day following his pardon
stated:
For the first few months 1 felt
only lazy and stupid. Along about
July l l began to lose weight. At that
time / tipped the scales at 167 pounds.
Now l weigh lis pounds. When Gov
ernor Brewer pardoned us yesterday
he told us we could remain in the
penitentiary and be cured by bal
anced diet treatment. One might
think this invitation would have been
accepted by some, but not even one
of the eleven accepted it. The twelfth
had broken down two months before
and was sent home" 1t was reported
that he had committed suicide.
AS a result of the pellagra poison
squad experience the following rem
edy, which in no manner refers 10
whole grains or unrefined cereals or
adequate breadstuffs, was set forth:
IAN increase in the diet of fresh
animal ana leguminous foods"
Ownership of milk COW and in
creased milk production for home con-
sumption"
poultry and egg raising for home
consumption"
stock raising"
Reduction in the diet of the car
bohydrate or starchy foods"
"Diversification and the cultivation
| of food crops, including an adequate
pea patch, in order 10 minimize the
disastrous effects of a crop failure
! and to make food cheaper and more
readily available"
| Make the other class of foods cheap
and readily accessible"
/ Improve economic conditions, in
crease wages and reduce unemploy-
ment."
To these recommendation which
will be difficult if not impossible to
follow some day the following will
be added:
Eat the foods already at hand, but
eat them in their natural, unretined
state. (Not difficult to do).
Grind the whole corn and consume
| ii in the form of corn bread, corn
pone, corn cake, corn porridge. con-
tanning all of the corn. (Not difficulty
Adopt the same principle with re-
gard to wheat, barley and rice. (Not
difficulty.
Eat something green every day and
make sauces or soups of the waters
in which vegetables are boiled, instead
of throwing them down the waste
pipe or into the sink. (Not difficulty
Forget the fresh meat if you cam
get it and use milk and eggs, beans
peas and lentils instead. At least no
as difficult as getting and keeping {
unemployment abundant.
If you can get large quantities o
fresh meat, eat of it sparingly anC
only once a day at the outside. (Ratn
er economical and sensible).
Certainly. but a mere fragment o
the real value of the pellagra poison
squad has been given to the world
Through faulty Interpretation th'
sufferings of men, so severe that theil
very violence caused some of them t.
attempt suicide, have been in thii
experiment almost lost to their fel
lows, even as the kronprinz Wilhelm
experience was lost to humanity.
According to the reports given ou
the men were fed collards, hominy
corn bread, corn grits, fried mush
biscuits brown gravy, rice, coffee
and sugar. Nothing was said of thu
fact that hominy is a demineralized
degerminated, refined corn product
that corn bread is the same kind o
a demineralized corn product; tina
fried mush, made from degerminate(
corn meal or grits is the same kline
lof refined corn product and tina
it was not because they We're corn
but because they were bolted corn
only part of the corn, that a diet o
such foods resulted in disastrous con
sequences, which consequences in thi
case, were aptly named "pellagra,
just as they would have been nameC
something else had they been named
by another set of scientists.
That these comments are shocking
is admitted, but that the condition
which justified them were even NOR,
shocking is obvious to any scientis
or layman who considers them in con
nection with the well-established law
of nutrition.