New-York tribune., 1918-03-31

card-free food. His further conclu-
sion was that mothers and prospective
mothers and children up 20 four were
amply provided for; that those between
four and eight were protected against
serious danger to health; but that the
others, up to eighteen, were undoubted-
~ in serious position.
One of his most striking conclusions
was in regard to adults He said that
TO adults were getting quite half of
their normal requirements; while the
allotments to men doing the heaviest
labor ranged as low as one-thrd, or
even slightly less, of normal require
ments. Bad as his figures were. he had
to add the remark that even these were
not always maintained, owing to ir-
regularity in the arrival of supplies.
Health of People Suffers
The health of the people undoubted-
ly is suffering, not only from insult
fcient punishment, but also from un-
suitable or even unwho lesome food
from being so wholesome as the kinds
it superseded. 1t tends to cause in
testinal troubles In the eager deter
mination to save food, too, imperfect
things are eaten, meats that have oe-
gun to go bad, and fruit in incipient
decay. Food waste is rescued from the
earth or any dirty receptacle for hun
cry mouths. A Dritlsh civilian pris-
oner, recently returned from the Ruh-
leben camp, near Berlin, reported that
he had frequently seen the German
seatries going around looking for rem
nants of food in the swill pals of the
prisoners.
Many of the food substitutes, with
which the markets are now flooded, are
worse than hunger itself; they sap the
vitality of man more speedily Adul-
terants injurious to health are also
resorted to by unscrupulous producers
whenever they see IN opportunity of
escaping detection. Some other adul-
der food unpalatable and thus destroy
their appeal to the palate. People can
not eat or drink them with that gusto
which, as psychologists tell us, IS
necessary part of wholesome feeding.
The substitute cotfees now drunk arc
nauseous drafts. Some of them arc
made of roasted acorns, some with
kohlrab and a mixture of catfeln (thls
latter sold at Leipsic at sl&fold the
peace price of good cotfee). Recently
the authorities allowed brewers in
making beer to use flavoring extracts
to make up for the lack OF hops.
mitted to mix one-ten,., hop leaves
with tobacco. A more recent decision
is even more generous to the manu-
facturers; they now use maple, linden,
sycamore, grape and virgini creeper
leaves in adulterating cigars and
cigarettes.
In all this adulteraton, it must be
some comfort to the Berliners to see
that their municipal government is eX
erting itself to keep their sausage
pure. 1t recently notified the butchers
that in making sausage of horse, mule
or donkey meat, no other ingredients
except hogs lard or suet night be
used.
The case of the invalid in Germany
is now pitiable one. Many of them
owe their i'll health to improper diet
and might be cured with an ample
supply of nutritious food. They send
for the doctor, who gives the neces-
sary certificate emitting the holder to
obtain an invalid's food card But the
doctors have been so overwhelmed with
such claims and have given SO many
certificates that the authorities have
at last begun stout resistance. Even
before | came away | knew persons
other easily digasted foods, but the
certificate was all they kad-the food
was not forthcoming.
Some towns make special provisions
for invalids. Leipsic some sine ago
opened special invalid kitchen, with
a capacity for feeding 750. In connec-
tion with this kitchen l found the only
scrap Of information that l was able
to discover in all my reading of the
German newspapers, going to show
that food or health conditions were in
some measure satisfactory. 1t was
narrated that the kitchen mad to be
closed after a short trial, because only
twenty or twenty-five persons visited
it daily. Or was the food so bad that
the invalids rebelled?
1t should be said, before quitting
this aspect of the problem, that the
shortage OF physicians must now be
a factor that seriously influences the
public health and the death rate AL
though Germany in peace times is
greatly oversupplied with physicians,
the demands of the war-at the fronts
and in military hospitals been
SO great that there are now not nearly
enough for the civilian population.
This became apparent even in the first
year of the war. and the lack of physi-