SOIL AND HEALTH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 424, 8 August 1947, Page 18

SOIL AND HEALTH

Another Statement by Sir | Stanton Hicks

the ground that Sir Theodore Rigg repeated arguments which were met and answered at the Science Congress, Sir

Stanton

Hicks

has asked uS to find room for this further state-

ment. "I prefer,’ he says, "to think that Sir Theodore is himself | confused; but we scientists, if we are worthy of the name, must not confuse the public." |

‘"‘Man lives in the tradition of the past, and hope of the future, but makes his decisions in the present." HE words are St. Augustine’s. Could we of British race have a better guide? My voice was raised at the Science Congress in June of this year in order to point the meaning of this aphorism. We have, owing to over-confidence, misapplied science in many directions, and in my opinion no less in agriculture, It is because of my hope of the British future that I had the temerity to speak out of the depths of my experience of wartime and army feeding. We must make our decisions in the present, but not isolated from the past and the future. Sir Theodore Rigg asserts that nature sometimes fails, and by making this assertion paves the way for developing en argument in favour of correcting nature by application of remedies. As a medical scientist who has seen, during a short lifetime, dogmatically held theories both in medicine and above all in physics, completely overthrown, and with them in the case of medicine, a vast mass of therapeutic paraphernalia, I am not so satisfied with the scientific basis of much of our activity both in medicine and in agriculture to-day, For knowledge of plant growth and the management of the soil is, from a scientific standpoint, in its infancy, as indeed is that of medicine-albeit a healthy and promising infant. . Let me take Sir Theodore’s assertions about myself in the order in which he makes them. Oriental Practice He begins by stating that I applaud the practice of the Chinese and Japanese in the return to the soil of all exerement, and that I am sceptical about the application of artificial fertilisers. This is both a misleading and an inaccurate statement. I referred to the method of oriental farming as one to which attention should be directed because of the enormous population density which it maintained. In doing this, I am merely saying in effect-look at the results of "that experiment in rearing human livestock; does it not appear remarkable if only because of the number per square mile? But what is even more impressive is the present Japanese low record for malnutrition, and for infant mortality in a country with its cities utterly destroyed, its industry in chaos, millions of new ‘mouths to feed owing to the return of all Japanese from Korea, Manchuria, etc., and an enormous repatriated army. The infant mortality at January wes

about 30 per 1,000. That of South Australia, Which is among the lowest in the world, stands to-day at 24.8 per 1,000. When he says that I suggest no yardstick by which to measure health, Sir Theodore merely repeats my own statement, but by taking it from its context uses it against me. I stressed the fact that not only can medical science not, measure health, it cannot even defin ~ ~v, é it. 1 am supported by no_less an eminent authority than John A. Ryle, Professor of Social Medicine, Oxford, who in a recent address states, "But health too awaits a better definition and a closer study, in the course of which the establishment of more trustworthy standards would have value." My point was and is that we have, for obvious reasons, been more concerned to classify, detect and remedy disease. Public health is still chiefly a matter of drains and epidemiology, although it has been extended into the field of school medical and dental advice, as well as antenatal and similar activities, but even here it must be evident that we have not proceeded far with the basic matter of health. Disease and the Death Rate Sir Theodore is nothing loth to bring forward a yardstick of his own-the death rate-and points to the low rate in New Zealand as an index of health. If an epidemic were to sweep the country and raise the death rate, would that mean that people were less healthy, or that there was no established immunity against the causal agent? Does a high death rate in a country with endemic disease indicate poor health, or merely more disease? The death rate merely marks the presence or absence of lethal agencies, it tells no more. The Chinese and Japanese live in such closely packed housing conditions as would decimate New Zealand, and the majority of Chinese, owirg to widespread shortages of water, cannot afford to wash or cleanse, He compares the production of the New Zealend farmer of £500 value with the meagre £19 of the Chinese. He makes no comparative reference to the richness in land area of the New Zealand farmer compared with that of the Chinese crammed upon his arable soil until it sustains on the Shantung Peninsula as many as 3,072 human beings, 256 donkeys, 256 cattle and 512 pigs per squafe mile. I am, therefore, a trifle unsympathetic with the comparison, and particularly with the financial measuring rod. For Sir Theodore knows, as every farmer knows to his cost, that the value of New Zealand farm produce depends upon subsidies direct and indirect, including artificial fertiliser, tariff agreements, quotas, internal price levels and,

\in fact, anything other than the personal ; "effort of the farmer in production. That a Chinese peanut vendor can do business on the basis of three peanuts for one Chinese penny speaks volumes for the value, to a Chinese, of a peanut crop. Food and Money Values The really significant matter is ability to feed the population, and it affords satisfaction «to know that despite @ alleged money value of farm production in New Zealand, the Empire is unable adequately to feed the ‘United Kingdom. At the time of writing, there is a gap’ of 560-770 calories in the British ration to be filled from "off the ration" sources, and it is safe to say that at least

half the population will be unable to bridge that gap whether from potatoes, which are in perilously short supply, or from canteens, British restaurants or the family pool. The discovery of the significance of trace elements for’ plant and for stock growth is certainly one that ranks in importance alongside that of the vitamins, but it does not mean that a purely chemical explanation of the nutrition of plants and animals is the complete one. All that I have said on the subject of artificial fertilisers-and I speak as a chemist-is that their successful use has engendered an attitude towards the soil, and the maintenance of life thereon, which is fraught with danger. I say advisedly, their successful use, for the measure of success has been financial return-as is so clearly indicated by Sir Theodore himself. I cited recently published researches which indicate that at least one trace element deficiency-that of manganese-can be due to failure of soil bacteria to bring the element into a chemical form which enables the plant to assimilate it, Yet, manganese deficient soils have been treated by the addition of the element in assimilable form. Chemical Explanation, Fails If certain organisms in the human intestine are destroyed by sulphaguanidine, signs of a vitamin deficiency (beri beri) can appear. This can be prevented or

cured by administration of vitamin B by the mouth. This quite recent discovery makes it clear why some individuals get beri beri while others on the same food do not. A simple chemical explanation fails to show why the individuals react differently to the same intake of vitamin B. The biological explanation now exposed shows that the organisms in the intestine of the healthy individual are able to correct the deficiency of vitamin B in the food, As in&the case of "trace element deficient" soils, one replaces the "missing" factor and gets good results-so far as: that factor is concerned-but the cause of the deficiency is not thereby completely explained, any more than the production of stamps by a slot machine ' is explained as a transformation of ens nies into stamps.

Sir Theodore’s argument on this point is headed "Incorrect Assumption." I am unaware that I have made any assumption on the point at issue, for I have not stated anywhere that nature produces healthy soils, As in the case of man, I am unable to define a healthy soil, but I think the time is coming when we must be able to do so in the case of both soils and men. That good husbandry has made the desert blossom is one of the lessons of history, just as is the desert-making effect bad husbandry. ‘

The final paragraph is headed "The Closed Cycle." Sir Theodore deplores the loss of lime and phosphate in the skeletons of millions of dead celestials, Apart from the fact that it is certain that these ultimately find their way back into the bean crop of later generations, let us assume that they do not. What is the extent of this annual loss? It amounts to %lb. of phosphorus per adult skeleton. But what of the turnover of phosphorus during the life of an average Chinese of 50 years-it amounts to 60 pounds? Will Sir Theodore explain where this comes from if not from within ‘the closed cycle, the existence of which he so categorically denies? I would suggest that the Phosphate Commission would not possess the resources necessary to maintain this upkeep of illustrious ancestors, and as a Britisher, interested not only in the survival of the Empire, but its luxuriant full blossoming in healthy and robust additional millions of our tace, I am greatly concerned at our waste of phosphorus under present conditions of urban life, for I am not sanguine enough to believe that we can manufacture our future phosphorus requirements in a cyclotron, or a aneleer fission pile.

I would, however, feel more optimistic about the future if we, particularly in Australia, had an increasing stock pile of phosphate from whatever available source,