FRUIT AND GOOD HEALTH.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 50, 24 March 1909, Page 4

FRUIT AND GOOD HEALTH.

A MEDICAL OPINION. There art; old saws which tell us that tin ;ijiplf a day will keep tilt; doctor awav. .Mr 11. Ben ja field, M.U., medical ofi'ieer of health for Gleuorchy, Tasmania, lias written a long pamphlet somewhat enlarging oil this tlioine, and endeavouring to "prove that fruit diet plus residence in an orchard • district means robust health and long life for all. Gienorehy is part of a district covering about one hundred square miles. Of 41100 inhabitants only sixteen died in the year, a large proportion of these passing away in ripe old age, while one of the sixteen was drowned. He ascribes this low death rate to the fruit-eating taste of the people and the fact that most of them live and work amid the orchards. " 1 have seen rollicking, toothless, fat babies munching away at red apples, or shilling in raw strawberries, and their mothers just langhed at the horror on my faxie; and when the thermometer stands at IWde'g. or lOOdeg., sunstroke never troubles tliein." The residents cat largely of vegetables, apples, and other fruit. "Food is one of the great factors which make for health, and if people would but learn how necessary truit is as both food and medicine, much more would lie eaten. Our Gienorehy people eat fruit at all times, and this has niu<-h to do with our exceptionally low mortality. Investigators among the bacili tell us that fruit juices are death to these unwelcome visitors. Under a lircad aiul-iueat diet alone, with mild or strong drinks to wash it down (except fruit.juice), corpuscles in the blood break up, and the colour of it changes until it is unlit to carry on its functions." Hut with plenty of fruit and simple life and diet, he says this evil is avoided.