http://www.fao.org/docrep/x0560e/x0560e00.HTM
Here is fermentation advice aplenty...
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/world/middleeast/14egypt-tunisia-prot…
A good article for Current-Events-Challenged individuals such as myself, on the topic of the recent Egyptian Revolution.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-d-slekar/rejecting-standardized-t…
I'm very curious about applying this “conscientious objector” tactic to similarly silly laws as they currently apply to unschoolers.
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http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19011-gut-bacteria-may-contribute…
Not at all comprehensive, but this is at least a mainstream article that's takes some notice of the existence of gut flora in connection with mental illness:
“Autism has previously been linked to metabolic abnormalities and gastrointestinal problems such as gut pain and diarrhoea. Several studies have also hinted at changes in gut bacteria in the faeces of children with autism.
“To investigate whether signs of these metabolic changes might be detectable in children's urine, Jeremy Nicholson and colleagues at Imperial College London investigated 39 children with autism, 28 of their non-autistic siblings and 34 unrelated children.
“Using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to analyse the children's urine, they found that each of these groups had a distinct chemical fingerprint, with clear and significant differences between children with autism and unrelated controls.
"'The signature that comes up is related to gut bacteria,' says Nicholson. It is not yet clear whether the bacteria's metabolic products contribute to the development of autism, but it is a possibility worth investigating, he adds. A large proportion of autistic children _have severe gastrointestinal problems that tend to appear at about the same time as the behavioural symptoms._ [my emphasis]
"'It adds another link to the gut bacterial involvement in the onset of disorder,' says Glenn Gibson of the University of Reading, UK, who has previously identified abnormally high levels of clostridium bacteria in children with autism.
“One possibility is that the gut bacteria in children with autism are producing toxins that might interfere with brain development. One of the compounds identified in the urine of autistic children was N-methyl-nicotinamide (NMND), which has also been implicated in Parkinson's disease.
“Meanwhile, Derrick MacFabe of the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, and his colleagues have found that short-chain fatty acids produced by clostridium bacteria can induce reversible autism-like behavioural and biochemical changes in rats...”
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http://www.momzelle.com/blog/inspiration/breastfeeding-in-mongolia/
Turns out that it _isn't_ some totally backward idea to publically or enthusiastically breastfeed, or nurse other people besides your kid! This is an excerpt from a great article about Breastfeeding in Mongolia:
“...In Canada, a certain amount of mystique still surrounds breastfeeding. But really, we’re just not very used to it. Breastfeeding happens at home, in baby groups, occasionally in cafes – you seldom see it in public, and we certainly don’t have conscious memories of having been breastfed ourselves. This private activity between mother and child is greeted with a hush and politely averted eyes, and regarded almost in the same way as public displays of intimacy between couples: not taboo, but slightly discomfiting and politely ignored. And when that quiet, angelic newborn grows into an active toddler intent on letting the world know exactly what he’s doing, well, those eyes are averted a bit more quickly and intently, sometimes under frowning brows.
“In Mongolia, instead of relegating me to a 'Mothers Only' section, breastfeeding in public brought me firmly to center stage. Their universal practice of breast feeding anywhere, anytime, and the close quarters at which most Mongolians live, mean that everyone is pretty familiar with the sight of a working boob. They were happy to see I was doing things their way (which was, of course, the right way).
“When I breastfed in the park, grandmothers would regale me with tales of the dozen children they had fed. When I breastfed in the back of taxis, drivers would give me the thumbs-up in the rearview mirror and assure me that Calum would grow up to be a great wrestler. When I walked through the market cradling my feeding son in my arms, vendors would make a space for me at their stalls and tell him to drink up. Instead of looking away, people would lean right in and kiss Calum on the cheek. If he popped off in response to the attention and left my streaming breast completely exposed, not a beat was missed. No one stared, no one looked away – they just laughed and wiped the milk off their noses.
“From the time Calum was four months old until he was three years old, wherever I went, I heard the same thing over and over again: 'Breastfeeding is the best thing for your baby, the best thing for you.' The constant approval made me feel that I was doing something important that mattered to everyone – exactly the kind of public applause every new mother needs.
“By Calum’s second year, I had fully realized just how useful breastfeeding could be. Nothing gets a child to sleep as quickly, relieves the boredom of a long car journey as well, or calms a breaking storm as swiftly as a little warm milk from mummy. It’s the lazy mother’s most useful parenting aid, and by now I thought I was using it to its maximum effect. But the Mongolians took it one step further.
“During the Mongolian winters, I spent many afternoons in my friend Tsetsgee’s yurt, escaping the bitter cold outside. It was enlightening to compare our different parenting techniques. Whenever a tussle over toys broke out between our two-year-olds, my first reaction would be to try to restore peace by distracting Calum with another toy while explaining the principle of sharing. But this took a while, and had a success rate of only about 50 percent. The other times, when Calum was unwilling to back down and his frustration escalated to near boiling point, I would pick him up and cradle him in my arms for a feed.
“Tsetsgee had a different approach. At the first murmur of discord, she would lift her shirt and start waving her boobs around enthusiastically, calling out, 'Come here, baby, look what mama’s got for you!' Her son would look up from the toys to the bull’s-eyes of his mother’s breasts and invariably toddle over.
“Success rate? 100 percent.
“Not to be outdone, I adopted the same strategy. There we were, two mothers flapping our breasts like competing strippers trying to entice a client. If the grandparents were around, they’d get in on the act. The poor kids wouldn’t know where to look – the reassuring fullness of their own mothers’ breasts, granny’s withered pancake boasting its long experience, or the strange mound of flesh granddad was squeezing up in breast envy. Try as I might, I can’t picture a similar scene at a La Leche League meeting...”
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http://u-sayranch.com/gaps/2010/03/i-could-never-do-the-gapss-diet/
“People are really scared to give up grains. Terrified in fact.
“Hey, I understand it. I used to say 'I love pasta more than my own mother' and I believed that to be the gospel truth. But I think what I’ve learned is that if you love something that much, then your body is likely addicted to it (which is usually not a good thing), and unfortunately you probably need to remove it from your diet. At least for awhile.
“A friend of mine keeps telling me, 'I could NEVER do this diet.' And she has various comments that go along with this, but her main reason is because she couldn’t give up gravy. This friend has IBS, and could likely be healed from it if she was only willing to try GAPS...”
“...I tried to do Nourishing Traditions. But I just couldn’t control my eating. And apparently, pouring on all that butter and fat, along with eating carbohydrates and grains, just makes you gain weight. At least it did that for me.
“I want to tell my friend, 'What if you weighed twice as much as you should weigh? What if you kept gaining weight? What if you thought you would keep gaining weight until you weighed 300 pounds? What if you found something that would heal your gut, so that you would get back to a normal weight? Could you do it then? Would you do it then?'
“I think she might.”
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http://tuberose.com/Adrenal_Glands.html
I can't vouch for the veracity of this source, but it is a fascinating and compelling article that I only skimmed due to its wealth of information. Some points concerning adrenal fatigue particularly caught my eye:
“People will develop a variety of different complaints depending on which of the adrenal’s functions have been the most compromised and the general areas of susceptibility which they have inherited or acquired. The adrenals produce a variety of hormones, and it is quite likely that the same combination of symptoms will not be seen twice in a whole series of hypoadrenic patients. The body’s reaction to stress is different in different people. The symptoms will depend on the nature of the person and the nature of the hormone depletion. In chronic stress states, the lymphatic system, particularly the thymus gland, atrophies, and there is also a tendency for development of stomach and duodenal ulcers in these persons. The person with stress-related illness might also have symptoms from lowered output of the adrenal glucocorticoids: cortisol, corticosterone, and cortisone. Of these, cortisol is the most important.
“...[A] common finding during the physical examination of the hypoadrenic person is made during auscultation of the heart. Normally the first and second sounds of the heart make a “lub-dub” sound, with the first sound being louder than the second. If you record the heart sounds on a phonocardiograph Endocardiograph), the second sound should be one-third the intensity (height) of the first sound. In the hypoadrenic person, the second sound will be equal to or greater than the first sound in the pulmonary valve area. The same may be true in other valve areas also, but in hypoadrenia, at least, the pulmonary second sound is greater. This accentuated pulmonary second sound is due to the pulmonic valve slamming shut because of pulmonary hypertension. Epinephrine causes vasoconstriction throughout most of the body, including the lungs. In the lungs this vasoconstriction causes a shrinkage of the mucosa and decreased mucus secretion. Epinephrine also relaxes the bronchiolar musculature, creating a bronchodilation.
“This is why epinephrine inhalers are so helpful for asthma sufferers. The bronchodilation, which normally occurs with epinephrine, cannot occur in a person with hypoadrenia. Instead, he gets a bronchoconstriction--a constriction of all the bronchial musculature with subsequent symptomatology. Likewise, the hypoadrenic person does not have the benefit of epinephrine’s action on the pulmonary capillaries and mucous membranes, with a resultant swelling of the mucous membrane and an increase in mucus production or secretion. In the hypoadrenic person, physical evidence of this is heard as the loud second heart sound at the pulmonary area. The bronchoconstriction, combined with the vasodilation and mucous membrane swelling, creates a back pressure in the pulmonary circulation that causes the pulmonary valve to slam shut, thus creating the louder second sound over the pulmonic valve.
“Any person who has abnormal lung function, especially asthma or bronchitis, should be checked for hypoadrenia. This is particularly true if the person’s symptoms are relieved by using an epinephrine inhaler. The muscles related to the lungs (deltoid, serratus anterior, etc.) are usually strong in these persons. Many lung problems are related more to the adrenals than to the lungs. The sartorius and gracilis, etc. should be checked in any lung case.
“Several years ago, it was reported that asthma was totally a psychosomatic illness. Patients were put under emotional stress and an asthma attack would ensue. Therefore it was concluded that the asthma problem was all in the patient’s head. If the adrenals are in the exhaustion stage...they will be unable to respond to the added burden of emotional stress since there is no reserve available to fall back on. The epinephrine will not be available for normal function and the person will experience bronchoconstriction, swelling of the mucous membranes, and increased mucus production. The result is an asthma attack triggered by the increased emotional stress. The attack has nothing to do with the emotional stress except that the stress affects the adrenals. Fix the adrenals and the person can physically tolerate the emotional stress.
“It is important to note that lung pathology, such as malignancy, tuberculosis, etc. will also create a loud second heart sound at the pulmonic valve area. Also, if there is an increased second heart sound only at the tricuspid valve area, this is usually indicative of liver congestion. There will be a weakness of the pectoralis major sternal, in these cases, and the sound can be normalized by treatment directed at the liver...”
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http://nutrition-and-physical-regeneration.com/blog/1959/how-to/how-to-…
http://nutrition-and-physical-regeneration.com/blog/3048/dairy/milk-die…
Turns out that even places like the Mayo Clinic used to use treatments like this. I'm pretty tempted to try this Milk Cure myself!
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I'm so thrilled! It is NOT illegal to drive barefoot (although it's probably not advisable in some places), nor is is against “health codes” to be barefoot in stores, etc. :)
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http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html#toc
I am absolutely, positively blown away by Weston Price. His entire book is riveting. I keep thinking: “Why don't we all learn about him? As soon as we can talk? And why don't we talk about his research?? And the amazing health and societal differences he documented between Primitive and Modernized races? Why don't we talk about this with everyone we know, every DAY?!”
What we Eat feels _at least_ as relevant as School Reform or The Economy or Social Inequality or Governmental Policy or just about anything else. Our nutrition is what we're made of! I am still mourning how most people in the industrialized world are STILL Eating White Men's Food, 75 years after Weston Price methodically documented the slow but methodical ways that it destroys human bodies, culture, and societies. I can't help thinking that if more people read this book, they might never touch “the white man's dietary” again, unless held at gunpoint.
...Some excerpts:
...If one will picture a community of several thousand people [a community of Modernized Polynesians] with an average of 30 per cent of all the teeth attacked by dental caries and not a single dentist or dental instrument available for assistance of the entire group, a slight realization is had of the mass suffering that has to be endured. Commerce and trade for profit blaze the way in breaking down isolation's barriers, far in advance of the development of health agencies and emergency relief unwittingly made necessary by the trade contact.
While dental caries was most active in the periods of systematic overloads, such as growth, gestation and lactation, even the splendidly formed teeth of the adult men were wrecked by dental caries when the native foods were displaced with modern foods. In all of the groups living on native foods with a liberal intake of animal life of the sea, the health of the gums was generally excellent. When, however, the sea foods were quite limited in the dietary, heavy deposits formed and often were associated with a marked destruction of the supporting tissues with gingival infection. This condition was particularly prevalent among all groups near the ports, when the groups were displacing part of their native foods with imported foods.
...Many of the island groups recognize that their races are doomed since they are melting away with degenerative diseases, chiefly tuberculosis. Their one overwhelming desire is that their race shall not die out. They know that something serious has happened since they have been touched by civilization. Surely our civilization is on trial both at home and abroad.
The nutrition of the primitive Polynesians is continually reinforced with animal life from the sea which includes both soft- and hard-shell forms. The incidence of tooth decay varied from 0.6 per cent for the most isolated groups to 33.4 per cent for the modernized groups. Those individuals living in their native environment on their native foods have universally normal facial and dental arch form reproducing the characteristics of the race. Those living on the normal environment except for using the imported foods of white flour, sugar, sugar products, syrup, polished rice, and the like, have in the succeeding generations marked changes in facial and dental arch forms.
...This much we do know that throughout the world some remnants of several primitive racial stocks have persisted to this day even in very exacting environments and only by such could they have been protected.
In my studies of these several racial stocks I find that it is not accident but accumulated wisdom regarding foods that lies behind their physical excellence and freedom from our modern degenerative processes, and, further, that on various sides of our world the primitive people know many of the things that are essential for life-things that our modern civilizations apparently do not know. These are the fundamental truths of life that have put them in harmony with Nature through obeying her nutritional laws. Whence this wisdom? Was there in the distant past a world civilization that was better attuned to Nature's laws and have these remnants retained that knowledge? If this is not the explanation, it must be that these various primitive racial stocks have been able through a superior skill in interpreting cause and effect, to determine for themselves what foods in their environment are best for producing human bodies with a maximum of physical fitness and resistance to degeneration.
Primitive native races of eastern and central Africa have in their native state a very high immunity to dental caries, ranging from 0 to less than 1 per cent of the teeth affected for many of the tribes. Where modernized, however, the incidence increased to 12.1 per cent.
In the matter of facial deformity thirteen [African] tribes out of twenty-seven studied presented so high a standard of excellence that not a single individual in the group was found with deformed dental arches.
[Concerning the Australian Aborigines (non-modernized groups)]: While they are still in the Stone Age stage in their arts and crafts, they have developed further in some respects than has any other ancient race. Their skill in tracking and outwitting the fleet and very cunning animal life of their land is so remarkable that they have been accredited with a sixth sense. They have been able to build good bodies and maintain them in excellent condition in a country in which the plant life, and consequently the lower animal life can be maintained at only a very low level because of the absence of rain. Over half of Australia has less than ten inches of rain a year. It is significant that the natives have maintained a vigorous existence in districts in which the white population which expelled them is unable to continue to live. Among the white race there, the death rate approaches or exceeds the birth rate.
...These natives decorate their bodies with paints for dances and sports. They know the habits of all of the animals and insects so well that they are able to reproduce the calls of the animals and thus decoy them into traps. Some of the water birds maintain sentinels at lookout points to guard those in the water. The Aborigines are able to decoy these birds by most ingenious methods. They travel with their bodies disguised by grass and shrubbery and enter the water with a headgear made from feathers of one of the birds. Once in the water, they then maneuver in a manner similar to that of the birds and go among the flock of wild ducks or swans. Working entirely under water, they draw the birds under one by one and take load after load to shore without raising the suspicion of the flock. When working among the kangaroos they are so skilled in preparing movable blinds that they can kill many in a grazing wild pack without alarming the rest, always striking when the animal is grazing. Their skill at fishing probably exceeds that of any other race. They are so highly trained in the knowledge of the habits of the fish and the type of movement that the fish transmits to the water and to the reeds in the water, that one of their important contests between tribes is to see how many fish can be struck in succession with a spear, the fish never being seen, their only information as to its whereabouts being the change in the surface of the water and movement of grasses that are growing in the water as the fish moves. The fish are started by the umpire's striking the water. The experts bring up a fish six times out of eight. These fishing contests are held along the banks of lakes and rivers where the water is deep enough for some of the reeds and grasses to come to the surface. The contestants travel in canoes.
The skill of the Aborigines in tracking is so phenomenal that practically every large modern town or city in Australia has one or more of these men on its police staff today to track criminals. For weeks, they carry the detailed information about the characteristics of the prisoner's foot across the desert, and when they come across the man s foot print they recognize it among all others in the same path. Every leaf that is turned over or grain of sand on bare rocks has meaning for them.
Their social organization is such that almost every person who had been in intimate contact with them, testified that they had never known any of the Aborigines to be guilty of the theft of anything. Even where partly modernized, as they are in the large government reservations they are trustworthy. A nurse in an emergency hospital told me that she continually left her money, jewelry and other objects of personal property freely exposed and available where many of the hundreds of primitives passing could pick them up, and that she had never known them to take anything. The other nurses had had the same experience...
...The marvelous vision of these primitive people is illustrated by the fact that they can see many stars that our race cannot see. In this connection it is authoritatively recorded regarding the Maori of New Zealand that they can see the satellites of Jupiter which are only visible to the white man's eye with the aid of telescopes. These people prove that they can see the satellites by telling the man at the telescope when the eclipse of one of the stars occurs. It is said of these primitive Aborigines of Australia that they can see animals moving at a distance of a mile which ordinary white people can not see at all.
While these evidences of superior physical development command our most profound admiration, their ability to build superb bodies and maintain them in excellent condition in so difficult an environment commands our genuine respect. It is a supreme test of human efficiency. It is doubtful if many places in the world can demonstrate so great a contrast in physical development and perfection of body as that which exists between the primitive Aborigines of Australia who have been the sole arbiters of their fate, and those Aborigines who have been under the influence of the white man. The white man has deprived them of their original habitats and is now feeding them in reservations while using them as laborers in modern industrial pursuits. This contrast between the primitive Aborigines as they still exist in isolated communities in Australia and the modern members of the clans is not, however, much greater than that between these excellent primitives and the whites, near whom they are living.
...In my comparative study of primitive races in different parts of the world, of modernized members of their groups and of whites who have displaced them, as well as in my study of our typical modern social organization, I have seldom, if ever, found whites suffering so tragically from evidence of physical degeneration, as expressed in tooth decay and change in facial form, as are the whites of eastern Australia. This has occurred on the very best of the land that these primitives formerly occupied and becomes at once a monument to the wisdom of the primitive Aborigines and a signboard of warning to the modern civilization that has supplanted them. Their superb physical excellence is demonstrated in every isolated group in the primitive stocks with which we came in contact. For tribes that have lived along the coast and had access to the sea foods, their stature was large and well formed.
...One of the most important phases of our special quest was to get information that would throw light on the degeneration of the facial pattern that occurs so often in our modern civilization. This has its expression in the narrowing and lengthening of the face and the development of crooked teeth. It is most remarkable and should be one of the most challenging facts that can come to our modern civilization that such primitive races as the Aborigines of Australia, have reproduced for generation after generation through many centuries-no one knows for how many thousands of years-without the development of a conspicuous number of irregularities of the dental arches. Yet, in the next generation after these people adopt the foods of the white man, a large percentage of the children developed irregularities of the dental arches with conspicuous facial deformities.
(FIG. 55. It is remarkable that regardless of race or color the new generations born after the adoption by primitives of deficient foods develop in general the same facial and dental arch deformities and skeletal defects. Note the characteristic narrowing of the dental arches and crowding of the teeth of this modernized generation of Aborigines and their similarity to the facial patterns of modern whites.)
(FIG. 56. The disturbance in facial growth is often so serious as to make normal breathing through the nose very difficult. This is primarily due to faulty development of the maxillary bones.)
The data obtained from a study of the native Australians who are located in a reservation near Sydney, at LeParouse, revealed that among the Aborigines 47.5 per cent of the teeth had been attacked by dental caries, and 40 per cent of the individuals had abnormal dental arches. For the women of this group, 81.3 per cent of all the teeth had been attacked by dental caries, and for the men, 60.4 per cent, and for the children, 16.5 per cent. In this group 100 per cent of the individuals were affected by dental caries.
...One can scarcely visualize, without observing it, the distress of a group of primitive people situated as these people are, compelled to live in a very restricted area, forced to live on food provided by the government, while they are conscious that if they could return to their normal habits of life they would regain their health and again enjoy life. Many individuals were seen with abscessing teeth. One girl with a fistula exuding pus on the outside of her face is shown in Fig. 58 (upper right). In their native life where they could get the foods that keep them well and preserve their teeth, they had no need for dentists. Now they have need, but have no dentists. It is easy to chide and blame the officials who provide them with the modernized foods under which they are breaking, but it must be remembered that practically all modern civilizations are more or less in the same plight themselves.
The rapid degeneration of the Australian Aborigines after the adoption of the government's modern foods provides a demonstration that should be infinitely more convincing than animal experimentation. It should be a matter not only of concern but deep alarm that human beings can degenerate physically so rapidly by the use of a certain type of nutrition, particularly the dietary products used so generally by modern civilization.
The child life among the Aborigines of Australia proved to be exceedingly interesting. Children develop independence very young and learn very early to take care of themselves. Mothers are very affectionate and show great concern when their children are not thriving. Two typical mothers with their children are shown in Fig. 59. These children, as suggested in the picture, were keenly interested in everything that I did, but were not alarmed or frightened...
...IN STUDYING the relationship between nutrition and physical characteristics, it is important to make observations at the point of contact with civilization where as few factors as possible in the environment have been modified by that contact. My previous studies have shown that wherever groups of people were utilizing sea foods abundantly in connection with land plants including roots, greens and fruits, they enjoyed fine physical development with uniform reproduction of the racial pattern and a very high immunity to dental caries. For this particular study we wished to select a racial group living on islands in tropical or subtropical climate, whose ancestral stocks differed from those previously observed, and which was located at points of contact with modern civilization. A high level of excellence might be expected among the groups who were in process of being modernized but were still utilizing the native foods [in Australia]...
...Badu Island had had the store for the longest period, namely twenty-three years. Of the 586 teeth of twenty individuals examined, 20.6 per cent had been attacked by tooth decay. Of the individuals examined 95 per cent had dental caries. Unfortunately, our stay at this island was accompanied by a torrential downpour which made it very difficult for us to carry forward our investigations. Had we been able to examine the mothers the figures doubtless would have been much higher. The children were examined at the school and showed 18.8 per cent of the teeth to have been attacked by tooth decay. The men examined showed 21.9 per cent. Figures given me by Dr. Gibson, who had been taken by the government to the island to make extractions, showed that he found as high as 60 per cent of the teeth had been attacked by tooth decay. For the children of this group, 33.3 per cent had abnormal dental arches, whereas only 9.1 per cent of the adults' arches were abnormally formed.
On York Island, 1,876 teeth of sixty-five individuals showed that 12.7 per cent had been attacked by tooth decay. For the women, this was 20.2 per cent; for the men, 12.1 per cent; and for the children, 7 per cent. For the children, 47.1 per cent had abnormal dental arches; for the adults, 27 per cent were affected. The individuals on this island had been in contact with the pearl fisheries industry for several years. Several of the men had been working on the fishing boat. Of the sixtyfive individuals examined, 67.6 per cent had dental caries.
...On Murray Island where a store had recently been established, of the 1,074 teeth examined for 39 individuals, only 0.7 per cent of the teeth had been attacked by tooth decay. For the women, this amounted to 2 per cent; for the men, 1.7 per cent; and for the children, 0.26 per cent. Only 12.8 per cent of the group had dental caries. It is significant that the natives were conscious of a danger from the presence on the island of a store providing imported foods. This had been so serious a problem that there was a question whether it would be safe for us to land, since on the last visit of the government officials, blood was almost shed because of the opposition of the natives to the government s program. The result of our examination indicates that dental caries on these islands shows an incidence which has an apparent direct relationship to the length of time government stores have been established there. The immunity to dental caries on this island is nearly 100 per cent. Of the adults, 14.3 per cent had abnormal dental arches, and of the children, 34.4 per cent.
…While these investigations were planned and carried out primarily to obtain data on the condition of the native races in contact with modern white civilization, wherever possible, data were obtained on the whites also. In a school for whites on Thursday Island, fifty children were examined with regard to their dental arches, but an embarrassing situation was encountered with regard to the sensitiveness of the whites in the matter of having their children examined for dental caries. Figures were obtained for the facial development which reveal that, out of the fifty children examined, 64 per cent had irregularities of facial and dental arch development. In the upper half of Fig. 62, will be seen a group of children photographed in the native school, and in the lower a group of white girls photographed at the white school. The difference in their facial development is readily seen. The son of the white teacher (Fig. 66, left) had marked under development of his face. The white population lived largely on canned food.
...Among the inhabitants of the Torres Strait Islands, almost all individuals who had been born before the foods of modern civilization had become available were found to have dental arches normal in form. In many families, however, living on islands where a store had been established for some time, and on Thursday Island where imported foods had been available for several decades, many individuals were found who had been born since the use of imported foods. They had gross deformities of the dental arches. This fact is illustrated in Fig. 65 in which typical depression of the laterals and narrowing of the upper arch and abnormal prominence of the cuspids due to the lack of space for the normal eruption may be seen. The facial deformity in two white boys is seen in Fig. 66. Rampant tooth decay in white children is shown in Fig. 67.
(FIG. 67. As everywhere these whites prefer the modernized foods and pay the penalty in rampant tooth decay. They are in pathetic contrast with the superb unspoiled natives. They are within reach of some of the best foods to be found anywhere in the world and yet do not use them; a typical characteristic of modern whites.)
We are particularly concerned with data that will throw light on the nature of the forces responsible for the production of these deformities. Since they do not appear to their full extent until the eruption of the permanent teeth as part of the development of the adult, it is easy for the abnormality to be ascribed to the period of child growth. As a result, it has been related to faulty breathing habits, thumb sucking, posture, or sleeping habits, of the child.
It would be difficult to find a more happy and contented people than the primitives in the Torres Strait Islands as they lived without contact with modern civilization. Indeed, they seem to resent very acutely the modern intrusion. They not only have nearly perfect bodies, but an associated personality and character of a high degree of excellence. One is continually impressed with happiness, peace and health while in their congenial presence.
These people are not lazy, but they do not struggle over hard to obtain food. Necessities that are not readily at hand they do not have. Their home life reaches a very high ideal and among them there is practically no crime.
In their native state they have exceedingly little disease. Dr. J. R. Nimmo, the government physician in charge of the supervision of this group, told me in his thirteen years with them he had not seen a single case of malignancy, and had seen only one that he had suspected might be malignancy among the entire four thousand native population. He stated that during this same period he had operated several dozen malignancies for the white population, which numbers about three hundred. He reported that among the primitive stock other affections requiring surgical interference were rare.