Close Relationship Between Humans And Soil Health

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 40, 12 January 1949, Page 5

Close Relationship Between Humans And Soil Health

Sir Robert Macarrison, a distinguished nutrition expert and a forpier member of the Indian Medical Service, carried out an experiment some years ago which proved conclusively that the closest possible relationship exists between the condition of the soil, the health of plants and animals, and the wellbeing of man.

Sir Robert’ showed that those races which cultivate their soil with supreme care enjoy a standard of- health unknown to the industrialised West.

He kept some 6000 albino rats foi; 27 months, a period which coresponds to 55 years in the life of a man. All the rats were kept under the same conditions of accommodation and cleanliness; , the only difference in their lives was the food they ate.

Two thousand were fed on the diets of the healthy Indian races; 2000 on the food, of the less robust Indian peoples; and 2000 on the average diet of the poorer English families.

The Indian rats were a complete reflection of the peoples whose diet they ate. Those fed like the Sikhs grew nearly half as big again as the others. Their bodies showed no traces of disease whatever. They had healthy young and they lived happily together. ' v The rats fed on the diet of such people as the Bengalis suffered from diseases of every organ of their bodies. Their young were often born dead, and they lived unhappily together. The experiment with the English fed rats was never finished. At the end of 16 days they commenced to kill and eat each other. ? *