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New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 901, 9 November 1956, Page 5

Sir,-I have never been able to make out whether medical practitioners aré ignorant of tthe existence of vitamins and minerals, or whether they know full well of their existence and their importance, but are reluctant to pass on the information lest they queer their own pitch and find themselves without any patients to "cure" because everyone has become so resistant to sickness and disease. But Dr. Ulric Williams’s letter to you encourages me. Here is at least one doctor who is not afraid to tell how to prevent disease instead of attempting to cure it. Vitamin C, for example, promotes quick healing. How many patients about to undergo surgery are.informed of this fact by their doctors or are told how to take the quantities of vitamin C that could halve the time of their stay in hospital and the number of subsequent visits to their doctors at 7/6 a time? I wonder how much influenza and the common cold cost the country every year? Your doctors will help you throw off a cold or the flu, but if they advised every man, woman and child to take two capsules of fish liver oil or their equivalent every day (cost about Id a day), colds and flu would be banished from the land, and many other illnesses into the bargain, Cut out refined foods. Replace white Sugar and sweets with raw _ sugar, molasses, honey and dates. Substitute wholemeal for white flour, and wheatgerm for useless breakfast cereals. Let everyone take some brewers’ yeast every day. Then we'll prevent polio and other horrors on which the medical profession prospers. Dr. Turbott and his confréres will be out of business. No need to import vaccines and drugs, or to employ armies of Department of Health clerks and typists, Dr. Williams-my salaams!

J.

W.

(Wellington).