Malaria

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Paper compiled in mayapur 1997

 

 

MALARIA

 

In many districts of India rice is the staple diet. In those areas where the

crop is sown broadcast in the paddy fields, the standard of health of both

crop and of the population is low, but in other districts where it is the

custom to sow the rice in a seed bed of soil rich in humus, and thence to

transplant the seedlings, both crop and people are remarkably healthy.

(Howard)

That the incidence of MALARIA may also be connected with methods of

crop cultivation is indicated in the following quotation. 'There are

multitudinous examples of the retreat of the crop and of the animal and

mankind before the parasite, but we are now only beginning to get examples

of the reverse process. In two cases MALARIA and sleeping sickness - there

are signs that soil fertility is the real method of dealing with these

diseases.' (Howard)

'I will take MALARIA first. In one of the most intensely MALARIOUS

areas of India, the Terai - a strip of forest at the base of the Himalayas -

MALARIA is so bad in the early rains, June to September, that it is regarded

as a death trap both by Europeans and Indians. Nevertheless, in this area a

tribe exists who are practically, to all intents and purposes, immune to

MALARIA. They go for intensive agriculture and their villages are very

clean....What we want is a McCarrison to follow this clue out still further.

That MALARIA depends on the way crops are grown is supported by other facts.

In West Bengal where rice is not properly grown, there is intense MALARIA;

in Eastern Bengal (Mymensingh) where rice is exceedingly well grown, there

is very little MALARIA. Further, in the rice areas, when these are invaded

by the water hyacinth, the conditions for mosquitoes seem to be removed.

Incidentally the water hyacinth will provide the humus needed to grow the

rice really properly.'

'As regards sleeping sickness, the evidence is not so complete:

nevertheless it exists. In Nigeria it has been fond that the use of cattle

manure for raising fodder crops is followed by a distinct increase in

resistance to the Tsetse fly disease. There are some indications that the

same thing occurs in Tanganyika. What we really need in the fly belt of

Africa is a fairly large area of of really fertile soil, so that we can se

what the effect of this is on the incidence of sleeping sickness.'

'In East Africa Major Layzell found that vegetables grown for his

labour force on the land manured with humus, made largely from sisal waste,

resulted in a marked improvement in the general health, physique and

efficiency of his workers. The men performed their tasks much more easily

than was the rule before the new system of nutrition was introduced. Major

Layzell is now engaged in starting this work at another center.' (Howard,

letter to the Times, 10th August, 1939.)

 

 

EFFECTS OF HUMUS

 

Corroboratory evidence comes from a large preparatory school near London at

which both day boys and boarders are educated. The vegetables consumed in

the school are provided by their own garden. Until a few years ago these

were raised with artificials, then a change over was made to Indore Compost.

The headmaster records the results as follows.

'Formerly in the days when artificials were used, cases of colds,

measles, and scarlet fever used to run through the school. Now they tend to

be confined to the single case imported from outside. Further the taste and

quality of the vegetables have definitely improved since they were raised on

compost.' (personal letter to Sir Albert Howard)

 

This experiment is of particular interest when it is considered in

conjunction with a somewhat similar one undertaken in New Zealand. Viscount

Bledisloe reports that during his term of office as Governor General of New

Zealand he ascertained that about 60% of the inmates of the Dominion's

public hospitals had previously suffered from malnutrition. He has also

stated that 'for many yearsnatural soil defeciencies have caused widespread

animal disease, bush sickness being found traceable to a lack of iron and

cobalt, dopiness in sheep to a lack of lime, Waihi disease to a lack of

phosphates, and goitre to a lack of iodine.' The truly devastating effects

of soil exploitation, past and present, are nowhere more evident than in

that beautiful Dominion.

 

 

Mrs. Yabel Daldy, founder of the physical and Mental Welfare Society

of New Zealand Incorporated, has been kind enough to supply official facts

and figures and statistics which fully endorse this statement. 'New Zealand

has for many years been carrying out a nation-wide experiment whose outcome

has proved beyond reasonable doubt that a people reared upon eroded and

otherwise exhausted soils becomes a people whose condition gradually

deteriorates.' She quotes professor Worley, MA,Dsc, (Chief of the department

of Chemistry, University of New Zealand) as stating that when New Zealand

was first colonized the country was almost entirely covered with rich

vegetation, chiefly forest, which covered the hills and extended up to the

mountain sides to a height of 3-4,000 feet. The floor of this forest was a

porous layer of priceless humus, the product of a thousand years of

formation. In this humus were the mineral salts extracted from the subsoil

and the rocks, by the roots of the plants and trees. In our unthinking

exploitation of the land we have destroyed the forests over the major

portion of the country and millions of pounds worth of soil fertility have

been sent sliding into the sea by subsequent erosion - one of the

consequences of deforestation.'

'The whole of New Zealands food supplies are grown on poor soils

manured with artificial fetilizers.'......'By what we add, as well as what

we may fail to restore to the soil, we are profoundly affecting its chemical

composition, its biological content and its physical nature. we are thus

affecting the quality of the food grown on such soil, and, in consequence,

the health and vitality of the population. It is now recognized that much of

our food has serious deficiencies, and that very many of our ills are due to

this cause.'

 

WHAT ARE THOSE ILLS?

 

The degenerative diseases - such a blood pressure diseases, heart

diseases, rheumatism, diabetes, nervous disease, kidney disease,

gastro-intestinal disease, cancers and MENTAL DISEASES, teeth caries,

rickets, anaemia and constipation will serve as the heads for our

indictment; but in truth they are only a fragment of the whole body of

knowledge on food deficiencies which different investigators from Lind and

Captain Cook to Hopkins and the Mellanbys have unlocked.

But it seems to me that the master key which admits to the practical

application of this knowledge as a whole has been supplied by Sir Robert

McCarrison (Major General Sir Robert McCarrison CIE.,

MD.,FRCP.) In describing his experiments which were made in India, he

mentions first the many different races of which the population of 350

million is composed. (written, 1940)

'Each race has its own national diet. Now the most striking thing

about these races is the way in which their physique differs. Some splendid,

some poor, some middling.....Good or bad physique as the case may be was

therefore proved to be due to good or bad diet..

 

'A Sense of the whole is the sign of a sound mind, and there is nothing more

to be desired at the present moment.' PLATO.

 

McCarrison writes during his association with the Hunza peoples of

Northern India: 'These peoples are unsurpassed by any Indian race in

perfection of physique. They are long lived (<140 years) , vigorous in youth

and age, capable of real endurance and enjoy a remarkable freedom from

disease in general. During my association wih these peoples I found not once

a case of asthenic dyspepsia, of gastric or duodenal ulcer, of appendicitis,

of mucous colitis or of any cancer. Among these people the "abdomen

over-sensitive" to nerve impressions, to fatigue, anxiety, or cold was

unknown.. Indeed their bouyant abdominal health has, since my return to the

west, provided a remarkable contrast with the dyspeptic and colonic

lamentations of our highly civilized communities.

 

They are famous cultivators of the land and are tillers of the soil quite in

a class of their own, returning all that comes from the land to the land.

The Hunzas are favoured in their fertile valley. But their perfect health

cannot be put down to the locality in which they live for there is another

valley running east-west and separated by a 20,000 foot mountain wall. In

this valley live the Ishkomanis. These people , though living under

apparently like conditions of their neighbors, were poor, undersized,

undernourished creatures. There was plenty of land and water but these

peoples were too indolent to cultivate it with thoroughness; and the

possibility of bad harvest was not enough to overcome their sloth. Many of

them showed signs of disease.'