Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-05-19
MOST HOSPITAL
DIETS ALL WRONG
Telegraph's Food Expert Points
Out Lessons of Kronprinz
Crews Downfall

|
That the Average Hospital Diet (Tea,
White Bread Toast, Mashed Potatoes,
Chops, Corn Starch, Pudding, Farina,
Rice, Etc.) Is WorthIess-America
May Persist in Ignoring the Signifi-
canoe of tie Kronprinz Wilhelm Epi-
sode., Both for Themselves and Their
Children, but 1t No Longer Can Be
Doubted That the Blood of Men, Rob-
bed of the Normal Food Elements of
Which Healthy Blood Is Composed,
Cannot, and Does Not, Perform the
Miracle Which is FoolishIy Expected
of il.
At the time of the Kronprinz Will
helm episode it was suggested to the
United States government that the
500 men aboard the cruiser should be
looked upon as a base for scientific
observation.
1t was obviously the duty of science
to keep these men under surveillance
in order that the effects of their eX-
traordinary dietic experience might be
closely ascertained and properly inter-
preted for humanity at large.
If exclusive feeding on white bread,
butter, fresh meat, canned vegetables,
cheese, sweet cakes, biscuits. coffee,
condensed milk, and sugar is followed
| by disaster the fact should be known.
1t was pointed out at the time that
of the 500, the 110 who had passed
beyond the limit of liberation in their
unhappy experience were perhaps
slightly more fortunate than the other
| 500 who still stood a little this side
the breaking point.
Prior to the sudden prostration of
these victims of demineralized food,
none of them had any serious sus-
picion that he was about to be strick-
| en-, but those who, through pain and
exhaustion, were finally brought to a
realization of the gravity of their con-
dition were prepared to submit to
| heroic treatment uncomplalnlngly.
The others. who were still able to
walk the deck, possessed no adequate
conception of the gravity of the slow
moving, insidious destruction of their
tissues.
None of them realized that the sec
ondary consequences of acldosis, even
of it's milder forms, are even grave If
that be possible, more than nervous
prostration, neuritis, edema, nephr1tis,
| beri- -beri, or whatsoever other word or
phrase is employed to describe such
| forms of malnutrition.
The alkaline salts necessary to pre-
| vent acidosis in a diet of meat are
| found by carnivorous animals in the
| blood and bones of their victims.
Lions, tigers, wolves devour the bones
and consume the blood as well as
the flesh of their prey. Meat as
dressed for human consumption,
stripped of it's bones and drained of
| its blood, does not furnish the base
forming elements.
In the ordinary meat diet man Off
| sets to some extent the acidosis that
follows such diet by his fondness for
milk, egg yolk, celery, lettuce. car
rots, parsnips, beets, caulifiower,
onions, spinach, string beans, aspara-
gus, apples, oranges, berries, and
other fruit
In the diet of the Arctic explorers
of recent years calcium food in the
form of pemmican go per cent of
which consists of dried raisins and
dates, rich in the alkaline salts or
| base-forming elements) has con-
tributed to the offsetting factors neces-
sary to avert complete collapse.
Acidosis, even of the mildest type. is
the forerunner of tuberculosis Acido-
sis is the most relentless calcium de-
stroyer now engaged in breaking down
human tissues.
Scandola has demonstrated that
nothing promotes the elimination of
calcium more than the use of decalci-
fled foods such as white bread, pota-
toes and meat.
The work of brennan indicates that
1.-THE withdrawal of calcium may cause
a fatty inflltration and later fatty de-
generation of the liver cells.
! 1t has been conclusively proved, as
we have seen, that where the calcium
supply of the blood is diminished, the
blood will not coagulate on demand
and after a diet deficient in calcium
post mortems show hemorrhages in
the long bones, thus revealing the
ravages that progress unseen until toe
late to be averted.
1t was observed by DR.. Perrenon for
some time prior to the outbreak OF
the so-called beri-beri on board the
Kronprinz Wilhelm that when the
sailors received slight scratches in the
discharge of their duties they bled pro-
fusely and for a long time.
1t was evident that the blood of the
men had been deprived of the calcium
so necessary to its coagulation upon
demand.
We have seen that where the mother
is deprived of a sufficiency of calcium
foods the foetus is handicapped by
lime deficiency. It's bones do not grow
properly, and later they decay quickly
Infant specialists frequently make the
error of attributing scurvy and rickets
/
lied milk forgetful of the ravages
committed by the refined diet of the
mother against the child before it's
birth.
The Importance of calcium in the
processes of nutrition is no longer sub
iect to debate and the fact that the
diet of the crew of the Kronprinz Will
helm had been commercially robbed of
Its calcium has now assumed the form
of a classic that no longer requires
demonstration, even though Americans
persist in ignoring it's meaning for
themselves and for their children.
For ten years 1t has been known to
the medical profession that the auto
lintoXication or acid-intoXication,
known as acidosis can be experiment.
ally produced by feeding a diet free
from the alkaline salts, thereby caus-
ing the sulphuric and phosphoric acids,
elaborated by protein digestion, to
combine with the salts of the tissues,
! thus destroying them.
1t is also known to the medical
profession that nature, attempting to
neutralize these acid conditions. sets
up a process in which ammonia is
withdrawn from the urea to such an
extent that the amount of 'acetone
bodies" acetone, diacetic acid, and
beta oxybutyric acid can be changed
by it,
These acetone bodies are found in
| a. IT,.