The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-11-22
THE TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
GNFORMATTON BUREAU
By FREDERIC }. HAsKIN. Director,
Washington, D. C.
KEEpTNC EIT FOR WAR.


/ is careful to work himself into the
! pink of condition. The nations of the
world today are engaged in a gigan-
! tic field meet. with the issue in doubt
and the prizes the highest for which
man ever strove. What can be said
( of an athlete who enters such a con-
test without screwing his physical
mechanism to the last notch of eff
Cheney? Yet that, according to many
authorities here, is exactly what the
United States is in danger of doing.
The nation is not giving sufficient
thought to the importance of individ-
ual health in war time. The national
! health is nothing but the sum of the
healths of 100. 100000 individuals.
One of the slogans of Mr.. Hoover's
office, the federal food administration,
is ''go back to the simple life" The
food administration enlarges on this
text somewhat in this fashion: BE
contented with simple food, simple
pleasures. simple clothes Work hard,
pray hard, play hard. Work, eat,
recreate and sleep. Do it all courage
ously. We have a victory to win
In certain features, this sounds more
like the gospel of the strenuous than
the simple life, but it is a practical
war creed, none the less Some of
the admonitions are primarily de-
signed to piece out the food supply
ligiously from the most selfish mo-
tives. it would result in a considerable
Improvement in the national health
and corresponding increase in the
national efficiency.
Hardly to- War Basis.
The fact of the matter is. we have
hardly gotten down to a war basis
IN our daily lives yet. We are part
Of the war but not in the war Our
training camps, our military prepara-
lions are still of our lives a thing
apart instead of being, as with
the nation of Europe our
whole existence. AS the war
goes on, this will change A more
Spartan ideal will permeate the land,
and t will improve the national
health Wa viii meet US half way.
But we will have to go the other half,
and in order to wage war with a maxi
mum efficiency, we will have to put
our lives on more hygienic basis
Take the matter of food for an ex-
ample. A good deal of surprise was
occasioned by the manner in which
the people of Europe throve on short
rations. Germany today is in sorry
straits, according to both official and
unofficial advices, but she is facing,
not rationing system, but certain
forms of Sctual starvation. For the
first year of the war, the overfed Ger
man burgher was actually benefited
vision. Government rationing in
France and England has had many
beneficial effects on the public health.
There is no indication today that
the American people will ever be put
on rations. We have plenty of food,
and our food conservation campaign
is largely an effort to induce the pub
lie to substitute certain kinds of food
for certain other kinds which are
needed for eXport--corn for wheat,
honey and syrup for sugar, chicken
and fish for beef. But tho we may
never be put on rations, there is no
reason why we should not study the
rationing question with view to find
ing out where it's good effects origi-
nate.
The benefits of the system seem to
spring largely from the fact that any
government supervision of food puts
the matter in the hands of experts,
who understand the proper combina-
tions of food elements and the needs
of the body. The human body may
be likened in some ways to the vessel
of the chemist in the laboratory. The
chemist puts certain chemicals into
his vessel to produce a certain reae-
ton Man puts certain foods into his
body with a view to producing the
complex series of reactions that con-
stitute healthy activity. The chemist
does not expect to get the reaction in
his test tube unless he puts in the
right combination of chemicals, but
the average man seems to have
sublime faith that he will get the
health reaction if he shovels down al
most any combination of foods in al
most any way.
Don't Know How To Order Meal.
The other day scientist who spe-
cialiZes in the principles of right eat
ing came into Washington restau-
ri is Tod
with war workers; the restaurants are
full of young men from the various
departments, until there is practically
bread line around the hat check
stands. The food specialist watched a
few of these young men order and eat
their evening meal, and shook his
head. They have been taught to read
Latin and French, to analyze the gases
of the atmosphere and the minerals
of the earth, to plan bridges and en-
gines, to solve the problems of &C
countancy, to test the strength of ma
terials, but apparently not one in ten
has ever been taught to order a
meal said he. There is a man 1
happen to know, from an engineer
ing bureau of an important depart
ment. He is something of a genius
as a mathematician, and his bureau
chief probably thinks he is lucky to
have him. Yet this young genius has
just paid for dinner consisting OF
heavy soup, fish, roast beef with side
orders of potatoes and beans, and a
dessert of Camembert cheese and hard
crackers with coffee. Tomorrow he
will function at about so per cent eff
ffciency and he will probably tell
himself that he has been working too
hard for his government"
A good many factors of the diet,
such as the amount of food eaten and
the number of meals a daV. are mat
tiers that each individual must deter
mine for himself by experience, but
the proper food combinations are
matters of chemistry, where the scien-
fist can help. Every traditional food
combination, such as meat and pota-
toes, bread and butter, bacon and eggs,
has a sound chemical basis, and
science can suggest many others, as
well as prevent wrong combinations
1t is in this way that government food