Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-05-15
CHAPTER hR


The Germans, Consuming Enormous
Quantities of the Refined Foods So
Popular in America. Proved by Their
Complete Collapse That Thousands OF
Children of the Poor in the United
states Owe Their Physical Defects to
the Same Causes.
Feb. 23, 1915, the Kronprinz Wei
helm sank the French passenger
steamship Guadeloupe, from Buenos
Ayres TO Bordeaux. There was more
fresh meat aboard the Frenchman,
with plenty of ham. butter, patent
hour potatoes, and canned vegetables.
me Germans seized 1t all.
Some OF the crew were complaining
of swollen ankles and pains in the
nerves of the legs below the knees.
Ihey had never heard of the Madeira
Mamore poison squad. Many of them
were complaining ofS palpitation of
the heart but they had never heard
that heart involvement is one of the
most marked symptoms of severe
acidosis.
They seemed able to eat. sleep, and
work, and apparently no plague could
menace them out there on the high
sea for there still remained to them
plenty of meat, tons of potatoes. and
enough sugar, white bread, and but
ter to suffice another year.
March %, 1915, with fifty of her
manifesting a depressing lack of Wig
or, she sank the British steamer
lamar, from Santos to Havre. seizr
ing $4,000 bags of green coffee and
all the butter, lard, white flour. and
canned vegetables aboard.
She did not heed the fact that
there is balance of acid and base
forming elements in the ASH con-
tent of all food.
She did not heed the fact that in
the food seized by her the base
forming elements had been removed
for the sake of refinement and for
the purely commercial reason that
they might keep"
She did not heed the fact that after
diet of refined food a mild chronic
acidosis is set up which abstracts
the lime salts from the fibrous tis-
sues, muscles, nerves, cartilages, and
bones.
When the limbsiof the German sail
ors began to swell they did not know
that the swelling was due to the alb
stractton of these lime salts with the
increased vascularity which follows.
They did not heed the fact that
loss of lime salts causes irritability
and weakness of the muscles with
neuralgia pains. They did not know
that the continued loss of lime salts
causes effusion of the joints.
They did not know that following
these stages in the progress of acido-
sis the cartilages soon become in
volved, and that this condition is in
turn followed by thinning and erosion,
which actually destroys the nerves
and eventually terminates in paraly-
sis.
The Germans were consuming enor-
nous quantities of the refined foods
of high caloric value so extensively
raliad fhrA,rnbnr,f he
States and they looked in all direc-
tions but in the right direction for
the cause of their trouble.
They did not know that the alb
straction of lime salts is a cause of
the rapid progress of tuberculosis.
Their business was to raid.
March 81, 1915, the German cruiser
sank the British steamer Coleby,
bound from Rosario to ST. Vincent
with another cargo of whole wheat in
her hold. Her coal, patent flour. but
ter, potatoes, and canned vegetables
were confiscated, but again the
precious wheat was sent to the
bottom.
Alarming conditions soon began to
develop. Typical symptoms of paraly-
sis, dilated heart, swollen gums,
atrophy of muscles and pain on press
ure over nerves, with considerable
anemia, were noted. Fifty of the men
could not stand on their feet. They
were dropping at the rate of two a
day. 1t seemed that a curse had de-
scended upon the cruiser. The entire
crew was going rapidly to pieces.
1t was evident that the Kronprinz
Wilhelm would either be manned by
500 dead bodies in a few more weeks
or she would have to make a run for
the nearest port. Her wireless had
told her that Newport News had
given harbor to her sister raider the
Prinz Eitel Friedrich. She would take
a desperate chance against the enemy
and make the dash.
That is why she was discovered
Sunday morning. April II, lying in the
James River, with 10 dying men
aboard, a floating wreck, a hospital
ship, a lesson to the American ex-
perts who cry "beri-beri and polished
rice" "pellagra and corn meal" when
meat and white bread and other
acidosis producing, refined, denim
eralized, debased, impoverished, food
less foods are the real issues.
Scientific murmurings far from the
point, as we shall soon see, have
long served to mislead the American
public and cloud refined food in
maze of professional ignorance. Of
course, there really is a disease called
beri-beri that really is caused by pol
ished rice. but there is no connecting
link between the acidosis of the Kron-
prinz Wilhelm and the beri-beri of
Bilibid prison other than is to be