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THE FOOD OF THE WORLD
THE FOOD OF THE WORLD
for protein. As consumption of food increases with income from one group to another and from times of depression to greater prosperity, there is evidently a
already abandoned this view in their own science, and it is evident that in the interpretation of colloid and crystal structure, which are likely to be of importance in relation to biology, principles other than mechanical are involved which are none the less objective and deterministic. It is now general opinion that purely mechanistic interpretations will never succeed when applied to the properties of living matter, and indeed that no fundamental insight into the behaviour of an organism as a whole will be gained so long as the purely mechanistic outlook is retained. In spite of Mr. Savory’s protests of loyalty to mechanism and his denunciation of vitalism, which he considers the only alternative, he is curiously inconsistent. "The advance of the
considerable potential demand for more food which would materialise if the purchasing power were there. Although for various reasons-from ignorance, tradition, or taste-the best use may not always be made of present powers to purchase, the improvement in the quantity and quality of food consumed when income increases shows that the general standard of health would be raised by increased purchasing power. The report next turns to agricultural production over the past thirty years, and concludes that increases in production sufficient to provide a liberal diet do not present any insurmountable technical
Arachnida has
probably been checked because they have managed to live by purely mechanistic means," he says, " but Mind, whatever Mind may be, has taken no share in the process." To be a mechanist for one half of the animal kingdom and a vitalist for the other gives Mr. Savory less intellectual discomfort than might have been expected. THE FOOD OF THE WORLD
THE International Labour Office has used its and those of the International Institute of Agriculture to assemble what is known of the nutrition of the poorer classes and of the potentialities of agricultural produce. In a report just published1 they regret that their studies are limited through lack of information to Europe, Australasia, and the American continents, and that even in these parts of the globe the value of their material is often limited by a number of factors; such, for instance, as inadequate sampling of the family budgets, the unknown quantity of wastage, the fact that information was sometimes restricted to certain articles of diet, and the difficulty of comparing observations made with different standards. In spite of these limitations they have been able to draw definite, if not unexpected, conclusions from a wealth of material. Comparison of national dietaries showed that the consumption of cereals and bread per individual in Bulgaria far exceeded that in any other country surveyed and was twice that in Sweden, Finland, Germany, or the U.S.A. The consumption of firstclass protein and fats was greatest in Norway; Finland headed the list for dairy products, while Belgium and Poland consumed most fruit and vegetables. But in spite of these national differences, the consumption of separate types of food varied with income in each country with a remarkable consistency. With increasing income more meat, fish, fruits and vegetables, and dairy produce were bought, while the purchases of cereals, bread, and margarine went down. Except for the surveys of Sir John Orr (Great Britain) 2 and of Stiebling and Ward (U.S.A.) 3 no satisfying evidence is available of the dietary and calorific values at different income levels. The family budget data from other countries were drawn mostly from earning households presumably better off than those of the unemployed. Nevertheless, the lowest income groups surveyed, even in the U.S.A. and Germany, were insufficiently supplied with calories according to the standards set up recently by a technical commission of the League of Nations meeting in London 4 ; only the richest countries and highest income groups attained the London standard resources
1 Workers’ Nutrition and Social Policy. London: P. S. King and Son. Pp.249. 5s. 6d. 2 See THE LANCET, 1936,i., 679. 3 Dept. of Agriculture Circular, No. 296, Washington, 1933. 4 See THE LANCET, 1935, ii., 1434.
89
difficulty. ,
The social and economic factors affecting the of food are then studied. If purchasing power as a whole remains unchanged, but the prices of different commodities fluctuate, the consumption of those items with lowered price will increase. Relative low prices of foodstuffs, the report states, are therefore a basic factor in expanding the capacity of consumers to buy food. They may be obtained in a number of ways : by increasing the efficiency of production, by reducing the middleman’s share, and by avoiding such measures as agricultural protection and indirect taxation. It is not suggested that the prosperity of agriculture should be disregarded but production should be assisted if necessary by subsidies and State assistance for the improvement of technique. The capacity to consume is at present being increased by pensions and various forms of reliefs, and more directly by the provision of free meals ; also by employers who have set up canteens not run for profit or who have provided their workers with allotments. The International Labour Office lays stress on the part cooperative societies might play in increasing food consumption. Distributing societies can cooperate with agricultural marketing societies in reducing middleman charges to a minimum, thereby lowering the price to consumers while the producer obtains a better return. This line of action, it is stated, is available now and requires no new machinery. The report as a whole is an attempt to shape economic and social legislation on a basis of standards obtained by scientific research.
purchase
DR. PANIS’S RESUSCITATOR
THE first-aid room of an up-to-date factory nowadays often includes some appliance for carrying out prolonged artificial respiration. For emergencies nothing can replace a method which requires no apparatus of any kind. Schäfer’s manual method should be far more extensively known than it is ; even medical students often have only a vague idea as to how it should be performed. But Schafer’s method, if it has to be applied for long, needs more than one operator and there is good cause for having some apparatus at hand in places where accidents and apparatus is essential for are liable to occur ; the treatment of respiratory paralysis occurring in the course of diphtheria, poliomyelitis, or progressive muscular atrophy. The Drinker respirator and the Bragg-Paul pulsator provide for these cases. But some people have considered them unnecessarily complicated and expensive for first-aid work, and two forms of swinging stretcher have been designed and used in this country. In this simple contrivance the impact of the abdominal contents on the diaphragm causes expiration, just as in the Schafer method. In France a " resuscitator " for the same purpose
for protein. As consumption of food increases with income from one group to another and from times of depression to greater prosperity, there is evidently a
already abandoned this view in their own science, and it is evident that in the interpretation of colloid and crystal structure, which are likely to be of importance in relation to biology, principles other than mechanical are involved which are none the less objective and deterministic. It is now general opinion that purely mechanistic interpretations will never succeed when applied to the properties of living matter, and indeed that no fundamental insight into the behaviour of an organism as a whole will be gained so long as the purely mechanistic outlook is retained. In spite of Mr. Savory’s protests of loyalty to mechanism and his denunciation of vitalism, which he considers the only alternative, he is curiously inconsistent. "The advance of the
considerable potential demand for more food which would materialise if the purchasing power were there. Although for various reasons-from ignorance, tradition, or taste-the best use may not always be made of present powers to purchase, the improvement in the quantity and quality of food consumed when income increases shows that the general standard of health would be raised by increased purchasing power. The report next turns to agricultural production over the past thirty years, and concludes that increases in production sufficient to provide a liberal diet do not present any insurmountable technical
Arachnida has
probably been checked because they have managed to live by purely mechanistic means," he says, " but Mind, whatever Mind may be, has taken no share in the process." To be a mechanist for one half of the animal kingdom and a vitalist for the other gives Mr. Savory less intellectual discomfort than might have been expected. THE FOOD OF THE WORLD
THE International Labour Office has used its and those of the International Institute of Agriculture to assemble what is known of the nutrition of the poorer classes and of the potentialities of agricultural produce. In a report just published1 they regret that their studies are limited through lack of information to Europe, Australasia, and the American continents, and that even in these parts of the globe the value of their material is often limited by a number of factors; such, for instance, as inadequate sampling of the family budgets, the unknown quantity of wastage, the fact that information was sometimes restricted to certain articles of diet, and the difficulty of comparing observations made with different standards. In spite of these limitations they have been able to draw definite, if not unexpected, conclusions from a wealth of material. Comparison of national dietaries showed that the consumption of cereals and bread per individual in Bulgaria far exceeded that in any other country surveyed and was twice that in Sweden, Finland, Germany, or the U.S.A. The consumption of firstclass protein and fats was greatest in Norway; Finland headed the list for dairy products, while Belgium and Poland consumed most fruit and vegetables. But in spite of these national differences, the consumption of separate types of food varied with income in each country with a remarkable consistency. With increasing income more meat, fish, fruits and vegetables, and dairy produce were bought, while the purchases of cereals, bread, and margarine went down. Except for the surveys of Sir John Orr (Great Britain) 2 and of Stiebling and Ward (U.S.A.) 3 no satisfying evidence is available of the dietary and calorific values at different income levels. The family budget data from other countries were drawn mostly from earning households presumably better off than those of the unemployed. Nevertheless, the lowest income groups surveyed, even in the U.S.A. and Germany, were insufficiently supplied with calories according to the standards set up recently by a technical commission of the League of Nations meeting in London 4 ; only the richest countries and highest income groups attained the London standard resources
1 Workers’ Nutrition and Social Policy. London: P. S. King and Son. Pp.249. 5s. 6d. 2 See THE LANCET, 1936,i., 679. 3 Dept. of Agriculture Circular, No. 296, Washington, 1933. 4 See THE LANCET, 1935, ii., 1434.
89
difficulty. ,
The social and economic factors affecting the of food are then studied. If purchasing power as a whole remains unchanged, but the prices of different commodities fluctuate, the consumption of those items with lowered price will increase. Relative low prices of foodstuffs, the report states, are therefore a basic factor in expanding the capacity of consumers to buy food. They may be obtained in a number of ways : by increasing the efficiency of production, by reducing the middleman’s share, and by avoiding such measures as agricultural protection and indirect taxation. It is not suggested that the prosperity of agriculture should be disregarded but production should be assisted if necessary by subsidies and State assistance for the improvement of technique. The capacity to consume is at present being increased by pensions and various forms of reliefs, and more directly by the provision of free meals ; also by employers who have set up canteens not run for profit or who have provided their workers with allotments. The International Labour Office lays stress on the part cooperative societies might play in increasing food consumption. Distributing societies can cooperate with agricultural marketing societies in reducing middleman charges to a minimum, thereby lowering the price to consumers while the producer obtains a better return. This line of action, it is stated, is available now and requires no new machinery. The report as a whole is an attempt to shape economic and social legislation on a basis of standards obtained by scientific research.
purchase
DR. PANIS’S RESUSCITATOR
THE first-aid room of an up-to-date factory nowadays often includes some appliance for carrying out prolonged artificial respiration. For emergencies nothing can replace a method which requires no apparatus of any kind. Schäfer’s manual method should be far more extensively known than it is ; even medical students often have only a vague idea as to how it should be performed. But Schafer’s method, if it has to be applied for long, needs more than one operator and there is good cause for having some apparatus at hand in places where accidents and apparatus is essential for are liable to occur ; the treatment of respiratory paralysis occurring in the course of diphtheria, poliomyelitis, or progressive muscular atrophy. The Drinker respirator and the Bragg-Paul pulsator provide for these cases. But some people have considered them unnecessarily complicated and expensive for first-aid work, and two forms of swinging stretcher have been designed and used in this country. In this simple contrivance the impact of the abdominal contents on the diaphragm causes expiration, just as in the Schafer method. In France a " resuscitator " for the same purpose