Fittest War Prisoners Those Who Worked Hardest

Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 6, 20 February 1952, Page 7

Fittest War Prisoners Those Who Worked Hardest

Doctors who were prisoners of the Japanese say in a report that the fittest prisoners were those who worked hardest.

"Those who sat ginimbling and pitying themselves lost weight and condition rapidly," the report says. The report, "Deficiency Diseases in Japanese Prison Camps,,, is the work of Dr Dean A. Smith, who v/as a prisoner in Hongkong, and Dr Michael Woodruff, who was medical research officer at Changi Camp, Singapore. The doctors say they had trouble getting information about former internees after the war, but they had a "strong" impression that a year after release few ex-internees, except those who were too old, were not fit to return to duty in the tropics. The outstanding features of undernourishment were increased irritability, excessive sensitiveness to noise, liability to take affront where none was interided, and to respond with exaggerated ill-temper. The report adds: It was impossible to estimate the value which a poor diet of the Asiatic type derived from the addition of beans, rice, groundnuts, yeast, and abundant green vegetables. "There is no doubt that the comparatively low mortality in the camips was due largely to the production, buying, and careful use of these foods.,,