HEALTHY SOIL MEANS HEALTHY MEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 417, 20 June 1947, Page 12

HEALTHY SOIL MEANS HEALTHY MEN

Extracts from an address by

SIR STANTON

HICKS

given to the recent Science Congress in Wellington

T is my-intention. to deal with the mis-application of scientific thinking as it affects only one aspect of modern life. I refer to food production .in_ relation to basic health. Obviously there is need for clear thinking and plain speaking in other departments of human affairs, but this is one that affects us all, and most fundamentally. Before leaving Otago University I was occupied in association with -Professor Drennan, upon an investigation into the causes of endemic goitre in that part of the Dominion, and we had already been forced to retrace our steps to the very soil from which food in goitrous areas was grown. Here it was found that a much lower iodine content of both foodstuffs and soil seemed to- be related to the distribution of the disease-a full elucidation of which was made by Professor (now Sir Charles) Hercus, who with his wife followed on with the research in succeeding years, during which I was prosecuting my investigations in America and Europe. I mention this firstly because it has local significance, and secondly because it illustrates my present thesis by proving how the outlook of the period directed the nature of the research. In the case of endemic goitre, our outlook was based upon. the pathology of disease. We were interested in the iodine because it was a remarkable essential ‘constituent of the thyroid secretion, and was moreover, very readily estimated by chemical analysis, and also an inorganic element coming only from" foodstuffs and therefore the soil, Definitions of Health At no time during that period, or for that matter until recently, did I ever look upon the soil from the standpoint of its significance to ‘health, For one thing health, as such, from a medical standpoint, is purely a state of absence. of disease, and the dictionary ~ definition I am sure would never occur to any medical practitioner suddenly asked to define it in, shall we say, e tadio quiz competition. oe 4 The same outlook ‘domibiates" the approach to plant or animal diseases (in so far as they are not reducible to bac-

terial, virus, or parasitic causes), So we get the ever-growing list of so-called trace elements, essential, it is said, to plant life and growth. Again, finding that food requirements can be assessed in terms of quantities of protein, fat and carbohydrate, we were quite content to base the whole of our medical, and even sociological estimates upon these, and the total energy value expressed as calories, until Hopkins introduced the conception of accessory food factors, notwithstanding the fact that Lind had fully established the importance of this aspect of foodstuffs in the 18th Century by following up an earlier practical observation of Admiral Sir Richard Hawkins in the 16th Century. « In those times diseases were visitations of God, and elixirs and prayers were the fashion, but. note the ease with which we pass in our thinking from the pre-vitamin to the vitamin stage, and yet remain just as dogmatic and self-satisfied. For if the discovery of the vitamins and their tangible demonstration, chemical isolation, and synthesis proves anything important, it most certainly is not that absence of one or other of them causes this or that disease, but on the contrary, that the desirable condition called health requires something essentially complex and vital in the foodstuffs upon which we subsist. At the present moment the medical profession, as well as. the bio-chemists, are interested in vitamins only in this fragmentary way. So much is this the case ‘that I am sire ‘that 99 medical students out of 100 if asked what foodstuff to recommend to provide vitamin C would -prescribe citrus fruit, whether such were available or no. "The potato would © most certainly ever receive a mention, lodine Deficiency Although iodine deficiency in soil and food is: undoubtedly a factor in the causation of endemic goitre it is by no means the only one, for this disease can cog independently of such a deficiency, and appears to result as much from the intake of other materials in food and drink, such for exam ae fluorine, _ Neverthl it is still a matter of "al ood that, is. in question, and Sir Robert shown how Fer mcm in the dr water influence . the yn of iodine Tes the That the organisms in the intestinal tract are involved in the absorption of iodine is demonstrated by the fact that sulpha guanidine, which is a recently introduced preparation for destroying dysentery organisms, effectively stops the formation of Vitamin K by intestinal flora, and thus indirectly influences the absorption of iodine and causes hyperplasia of thyroid

gland in animals otherwise not receiving this vitamin in the diet. This observation, like the discovery made during the recent war, emphasises the complexity of our symbiosis with our intestinal flora. Dysentery patients receiving sulpha guanidine treatment, and at the same time on a low dietary intake of the Vitamin B complex, often quite rapidly developed beriberia disease allegedly due

to. deficiency in "Vitamin ~~" — B. This it appears is, like the previously mentioned thyroid disease, due to suppression of all the bacterial flora by the sulpha drug, and thus we discover that these humble occupants of our intestine can and do often supply adequate Vitamin B to maintain health on a diet otherwise deficient in that food factor. Experience with Troops Our investigations into the feeding of prisoners-of-war have established without a doubt that beriberi has been fatally rife among troops receiving what is officially recognised as adequate Vitamin B, but inadequate riboflavin, and you doubtless are aware of the crucial experiment conducted upon a Boston medical man who went on a diet free from Vitamin C for six months, whose blood and tissues in the first 10 days and thereafter were shown to contain none of this essential food factor, and who nevertheless developed absolutely no signs of scurvy. His dietary did however contain large amounts of all the other known vitamins. All these, and many similar observations made in recent times, serve to demonstrate that researches based upon pathology of disease, can lead to oversimplification. Thus endemic goitre has a simple explanation in iodine deficiency in soil and food; scurvy and beriberi in foods deficient in Vitamins C and B respectively. In actual fact, the matter is immensely more complex than this, as I have indicated, and the time is come when a whole view, rather than a partial one, is necessary. What is the essential weakness in the approach to the problems mentioned? It is the firm belief that a simple chemical explanation will prove to be correct and complete. Medical bacteriology, too, has exerted a powerful influence. Engrossed in the germ theory of disease, we have failed to grasp the idea of an ecological balance between all living organisms, high and low. So it comes about that we could naively suppose that the teeming life of our intestinal contents could be little else than an aesthetic embarrassment, Sulpha guanidine has banished

that view, and it required a war, and large numbers of successive observations of cases, to provide adequate and convincing evidence. Soil-Food-Health So, too, it comes about that we can ignore the teeming bacterial and fungal life of our productive soil and imagine that a simple chemical explanation of plant growth is the true one. The pity of it was that the immediate results of application of the chemical explanation to practical agriculture proved so lucrative to all concerned. It is to this basic aspect of our health and being, therefore, that I wish to draw attention in the light of the criticism of our scientific outlook which I havé endeavoured to justify, by quoting some of the more outstanding and relevant examples. If, as in the case of simple goitre, we are dealing with a disease the origin of which is traceable t6 the soil and foodstuffs derived therefrom, is it at all unlikely that robust health is largely dependent upon the food we eat, and therefore upon the soil in which it grows? You are all acquainted with the cobalt deficiency which causes failure in the maturation of the red blood corpuscles of sheep-a widespread condition in South Australia, and I believe not unknown in this country. In Western Australia, however, a’ much more complex stock feeding problem has arisen, and it is one which has particular significance for this thesis that soil and food and health are interlocked. Effect on Fecundity A population of some one and a-half million merino sheep, including many valuable stud flocks, is involved. It is pastured on a variety of subterranean clover which was found to grow luxuriantly in this area where the stock carrying power of the native fodder plants was lower, and therefore less remunerative. This clover has spread until it comprises some 80 per cent. of the fodder plant available to the- sheep. At first, results measured by the usual financial yardstick were excellent. Then as time progressed-the period involved is some (continued on next page)

3 a very odd thing As odd as can be That whatever Miss T. eats Turns into Miss T. Porridge and apples, Mince, muffins, and mutton, Jam, junket, jumbles Not a rap, not a button It matters, the moment They’re out of her plate, (Though shared by Miss«Butcher and sour Mr. Bate). Tiny and cheerful And neat as can be, Whatever Miss T. eats Turns into .Miss T. -Walter de la Mare.

(continued from previous page) 20 years-the fecundity of the flocks showed steady diminution. ending in extensive losses of both ewes and lambs owing to difficulty in lambing time. ‘Investigations by Professor Underwood have established the following facts: (a) There is dystocia due to uterine weakness, and to remarkable overgrowth of the lining epithelium or ‘endometrum. of the uterus. Uterine inversion is not uncommon. (b) There is a regression of male organs to female type. The mammary glands become well developed, and the uterus masculinus, which is normally so small as only to admit the head of a pin, becomes in some instances as large as the clenched fist. (c) Extracts made from the clover when injected into experimental animals produce similar changes in the sex glands. (d) The same changes can be produced by continued treatment with the female sex hormone-oestradiol. Here then in Western Australia, and on a lesser scale in South-East South Australia, we have diminishing fertility, and even failure of normal physiological reproductive function, on a dramatic scale, in an animal species restricted in its dietary to practically one fodder plant of the clover species. I wish at this stage to emphasise the fact that 20 generations of sheep have been ‘necessary to demonstrate this final fact. . Intensive investigation is in progress to determine whether this result is due to a normal growth of this particular clover, or whether the influence of the clover is. due in turn to a soil deficiency, but. whatever may be the explanation

one thing is evident. The changes ,in the sheep have come about over a period of years, and the main factor has been a steady displacement of other fodder plants by subterranean clover during the period. There is some evidence that provided the sheep

get some other pasture for a period, the changes mentioned do not occur, and this may indicate compensating factors in other plants, but whether this is so or not, the food of the animals is the cause of their remarkable change in fundamental paysiological function, Undertakers’ Horses It is, of course, no new discovery, this isolation of a sex hormone from plants. Nor is it news to relate the astonishing influence of the male sex hormone on the growth and development of plants. It is 12 years since I saw demonstrated the premature growth of. lilies of the valley, which bloomed in one half the normal period of life. On the other hand, it is highly important news that was given me after I had lectured upon this topic at Mildura recently, by Professor Lewis, of Melbourne University. As architect of the Great Western Railway, he dealt, as part of his activities, with a London market-gardener, who employed 200 men, and thus farmed in quite a big way. He had purchased stable manure from the Great Western for many years, and in course of conversation told Professor Lewis that he always used as much manure from the stables of undertakers as he could get, and that he willingly paid more for it, This apparently unscientific fact finds an explanation to-day which it could not have found 12 years ago in terms of ammonium salts and phosphates. The explanation lies in the fact that the con-

vention of the period demanded fine, sleek, high-stepping black animals to draw the hearse. These were stallions and that is the explanation of its efficacy in terms of testosterone. ... We have long been acquainted with the fact that the growth of legumes is associated with the growth of nodules on their rootlets- nodules containing nitrogen fixing bacteria. We are not, however, so likely to be widely informed on the details of the strange symbiosis of plant and bacterium. From 1886, when the phenomenon was identified, until 1930, it was believed that these bacteria could fix nitrogen apart from the plant. From then on, it has been known that neither host plant nor bacterium can, apart, affect this remarkable chemical change, and nothing is to-day known of the nature ve their living relationship... . "A Fashion of the Times" We have already seen that science is a fashion of the times. . .« The growth of urban population increased the severity, of epidemics and the consequent application of the new science of bacteriology to epidermology led to concentration upon public health and hygiene, and the development of waterborne sewage disposal, Industrial chemistry provided chemical fertilisers and the attitude towards traditional farming and the use*of animal manures became frankly contemptuous.

While the advance of Public Health measures lowered the death rate from epidemic disease, and increased the expectation of life, there were increasing signs of deterioration in health, even when considered merely as absence of disease. The medical statistics of re-

cruiting for the services continued to show increasing grounds for misgiving, and with the outbreak of the 1914-18 war the rejections both in England and the U.S.A. excited concern, while recruitment for the 1939-45 war disclosed a much worse position, :as I know from personal information given by the medical officer in charge of recruiting. The Governor-General of this Dominion has more than once spoken publicly upon the evidence which he has seen as a fighting soldier, and his observations have excited comment outside the country. ... In Australia, we have a nation-wide National Fitness Campaign, and this Government-spon-sored activity aims. at making youth fit by physical exercise, while on the other hand it is becoming a matter for surprise to find anyone with his natural teeth after the age of 35 years, the majority having already lost them in their ’teens or twenties. Yet we have school dental services, Although these activities Are necessary, they are not dealing with causes. Faulty motor-car construction cannot be reasonably dealt with by increasing the number of repair stations or placing them under Government control. . Among those races who have for one reason or another retained thejr connexion with the soil, and where, in par-| ticular, nothing. is lost from the soil owing to a closed cycle of farm operation and domestic life, the population carried per square mile reaches as much (continued on next page)

Coane THousH we have deleted from Sir Stanton’s paper those passages which laymen would have found it difficult to follow, we have changed nothing, and omitted nothing essential to the understanding of the general argument. The comment by Sir Theodore Rigg (on page 15) stands as Sir Theodore supplied it except in the opening paragraph, which has been slightly changed in form but not, of course, in substance.

SOIL AND HEALTH

( continued from previous page) as 1,800-three times that carried by the most ‘improved farm land in the United States, Evidence from Japan My recent visit to Japan surprised me in spite of my reading upon the subject. The most unpromising soil, and the most difficult terrain notwithstandingfood is produced, two crops per year, by this closed cycle of operations, and a population supported in a state of health and happiness which is astonishing when the state of the ruined cities, destroyed industry, and millions of displaced persons is taken into consideration. Here I found little evidence of malnutrition. Such as does exist, is less than 1 per cent. and that mainly beriberi. Could our agriculture do as much for us with even our wretchedly small populations by comparison and in countries free from the tremendous soil destroying cateclysms that beset Japanearthquake and typhoon? Their efforts at soil conservation alone are staggering, in their obvious rejection of money cost as a measure of what should be done. King, who was one time head of the U.S. Soil Service, quotes an instance of a peach orchard with trees planted in rows" ‘and two feet apart, with ten

rows of cabbages, two rows of Windsor beans, and one of garden peas-13 rows of vegetables flanked by fruit trees in 22 feet, all luxuriant and strong. That is the sort of picture I saw in Japan when I expected to find a broken, confused, and even starving people, and the central fact is that the bulk of the people are peasants, and all of them, whether in country or town, grow foodstuffs, using as the fertilising agent human excreta fermented with straw and garden refuse. Must we painstakingly retrace our steps to an ancient traditional means of agriculture-the only one which has led to the survival of civilisations so old as those of the orient, and compared with which ours are infantile growths. Must we discover toxins, hormones, catalysts, and antibodies and after a flat refusal to accept the evidence of their potent actions, finally build a whole literature about them? Must we do all this and refuse to take the simple step of perceiving that they are all involved in the life and function of the soil which maintains us? Sir George Stapledon’s Advice A friend of mine, who is the third generation of a famous farming family in New England, N.S.W., has restored his pastures from the state to which they

degenerated after some 30 years of application of inorganic fertiliser under direction of the prevailing authoritative view. To-day, his pastures stand out among those of his neighbours, even his worst country carrying a splendid mixed fodder cover by comparison. He has merely carried out the advice of Sir George Stapledon, the noted English pasture authority, and has after one application of phosphate, lightly ploughed in the pasture and kept to a system of long rotations, resting the land and building up the organic content of his soils. He always gets top price for his animals and his wool, and his land carries more sheep to the acre than anyone else’s. He has the lowest disease incidence in the countryside, He has, in fact, watched his worm infestation diminish as his pastures improved, and his farm records are as fine a contribution to scientific literature as any that earned academic fame. When I asked him what his neighbours say, he replied-‘‘They say, ‘Oh, the Colonel can afford to do it.’" Note the influence of the prevailing outlook -financial expediency. Here in New Zealand, 18 months ago, I saw a redeemed citrus farm in Bay of Isiands which despite unprecedented drought had received no watering even at the end of February, and had had no application of insecticide. All the local citrus growers took me to see this orchard as an object lesson, for they had been wetering since Novem-

ber, and all had used red oil. Yet these trees were healthier, and being a citrus grower myself, I could judge. What was the secret? The farmer had trenched the ground two feet deep round each tree, and had filled the trench with com-post-an artificially produced organic fertiliser, rich in humus, and one which imitates the age-old method of the Chinese. Napoleon Said It For too long, human nutrition has been a piecemeal study of chemists and biochemists, when after all, it really is a matter of farming and of raising of healthy human stock, just as we can raise healthy farm stock. Having been misled by a scientific fashion of the times, in respect of farm stock, is there any wonder that we have been even more misled over human beings? . . . Napoleon, waiting for the end at St. Helena, made a commentary on this that deserves to be repeated at the end of this discourse: 5 "Agriculture is the soul, the foundation of the kingdom; industry ministers to the comfort and happiness of the population; foreign trade is the superabundance; it allows the exchange of the surplus of agriculture and industry. Foreigh trade, which in its results is infinitely inferior to agriculture, was an object of secondary importance to my mind. Foreign trade ought to be the servant of agriculture and home industry; these last should never be subordinated to foreign trade."