APPLE POWDER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1938, Page 3

APPLE POWDER

NEW INDUSTRY STARTED POSSIBILITIES IN DOMINION Most people know that there is much virtue in the humble apple. The old adage of “an apple a day” is world famous, but few people realise the extent of the discoveries of modern medical science respecting the use of apples as a certain cure in many internal disorders —notably dysentry. If discoveries made during recent years had been public property at the beginning of the century, innumerable lives might have been saved in the South African campaign alone. It is interesting to note that German soldiers suffering from dysentry during the Great War, were surprised at the relief which followed the eating of raw apples. A German doctor —Heisler — witnessed the cure of an obstinate case of dysentry through eating raw apples; he then adopted the apple in the treatment of all cases of this sort with great success. Dr Moro, of Heidelberg, definitely established the raw apple diet as a means of treatment, and used it with marked success in all acute and chronic bowel infections of infancy. Many other German doctors developed his ideas on this subject. Finely grated apple was the recognised form in use; children as young as six months old were saved by this diet. RESULTS IN AUSTRALIA In Australia extensive observation has been carried out in Brisbane by Dr P. A. Earnshaw, M. 8., Ch.M. (Sydney), and he endorsed all the favourable reports from overseas. There were, of course, certain difficulties in the use of the raw apple diet; the objection of parents and the difficulty in persuading patients to consume enough (the Gravenstein is a notable example), do not possess the curative properties, and most important of all, apples are not procurable everywhere, especially in the tropics, where they are most needed. An apple powder was then put on the market in Germany. The powder is made from the unpeeled fruit dried in vacuo. This powder has all the advantages of the fresh fruit, even the flavour. It lasts a long time and readily mixes with warm water. It is more easily measured than raw fruit, and represents six times the same quantity by weight of fresh apple.

A CERTAIN CURE Apple powder is a yellow powder with a pleasant odour, and dissolves in five to ten minutes in warm water or tepid tea, saccharine must be used to sweeten instead of sugar. About a teaspoonful is a dose, it never fails to cure the diseases mentioned, and the youngest child can take this treatment. It will be interesting news to New Zealand to learn that this apple powder is now being produced in Tasmania by a canning firm at Hobart. It keeps for long periods and can be easily sent to remote parts of the world. There is a great future for this young industry, and it is of course practicable to utilise grade apples which are not readily marketable as table fruit. It is to the credit of the New Zealand Government that they have quietly instituted careful inquiry into the reports on the subjects, which certainly offer an opening for a similar industry in the Dominion. It seems that here lies a potential opening for the absorption of surplus apples in New Zealand.