Good Earth
Good Earth
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美好地球
DOI：
10.1136/bmj.1.4508.767
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发表时间：
1947
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
L. Witts
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
L. Witts
GOOD EARTH 关于喂养的想法。作者：Lionel J. Picton，OBE（第 265 页；插图。12s.6d.）伦敦：Faber 和 Faber。在本书的大部分内容中，作者强调了借助天然肥料和堆肥种植的食物的价值。我们大城市人口的尿液和粪便中营养物质的损失无疑是对自然循环的重大干扰。在不久的将来如何预防它并不容易，但任何生物学家都必须认为，就像我们矿物和木材资源的贫乏一样，它是西方文明的限制因素之一，迟早必须结束。皮克顿博士提出的一些想法，特别是与阿尔伯特·霍华德爵士和伊芙·贝尔福女士的名字相关的想法，至少可以说是极具争议的。对于动物界来说，说昆虫和真菌不会引起疾病，或者说用喷雾剂、粉末等进行保护是不科学和不健全的，这当然是不正确的。当然没有疟疾学家会同意这样的学说，而疟疾是人类最严重的疾病之一。因此，很难相信这些“基本原理”适用于植物疾病，也很难相信废除化肥和杀虫剂会促进动植物健康。更广泛支持的观点是，只有腐殖质和化学品的明智组合才能达到这一目的。无论如何，多年来，一个完全有机肥料的文明是完全不可能的。许多出版物都提供了这些陈述的证据，例如 David Lilienthal 的书 TVA，有关田纳西河谷的图解，或 Donald Hopkins 的 Chemicals、Humnus 和土壤。尽管如此，我们完全同意皮克顿博士所说的很多其他内容。我们年轻一代有时会忘记像皮克顿博士这样的人在职业生涯中在营养知识方面取得的巨大进步。需要布尔战争来揭示茶、白面包和果酱饮食所带来的民族活力的恶化，并需要 1914-18 战争来开始第一个大规模措施来纠正这种情况。皮克顿博士结合丰富的历史实例和个人经验讨论了保护性食品、维生素和微量元素的重要性，但公众仍然知之甚少。煤炭和农业是我们适应战后世界的两个主要因素，所以有一群医生在煤矿之间行医是再合适不过了！南兰开夏郡和柴郡肥沃的草原应该签署医学遗嘱，皮克顿博士的书在某种程度上是对此的评论。我们祝愿他们的传教取得成功，并建议他们一定要以可靠的证据为基础来宣讲。 LJ 维蒂斯。
GOOD EARTH Thooughts on Feeding. By Lionel J. Picton, OBE (Pp. 265; illustrated. 12s. 6d.) London: Faber and Faber. In much of this book the author stresses the value of foods grown with the aid of natural manures and compost. The loss of nutrients in the urine and faeces of our great urban populations is undoubtedly a major disturbance of the cycle of Nature. lt is not easy to see how it can be prevented in the near future, yet any biologist must think that, like the impoverishment of our mineral and timber resources, it is one of the limiting factors of Western civilization and must sooner or later be ended. Some of the ideas which Dr. Picton advances and which are associated particularly with the names of Sir Albert Howard and Lady Eve Balfour are, to say the least, highly controversial. It certainly would not be true to say of the animal creation that insects and fungi do not cause disease, or that protection by means of sprays, powders, and so on is unscientific and unsound. Surely no malariologistwould subscribe to such a doctrine, and malaria is one of the most serious diseases of mankind. It is therefore difficult to believe that these" basic principles" can be true of disease in plants or that the abolition of chemical fertilizers and parasiticides would promote animal and plant health. The more widely supported view is that only a judicious combination ofhumus and chemicals can attain this end. In any event, a civilization whose manure is wholly organic has been a stark impossibility for many years. Evidence for these statements is given in many publications, such as David Lilienthal's book, TVA, on the Tennessee Valley schemne, or Donald Hopkins's Chemicals, Humnus and the Soil. Nevertheless, we entirely agree with much else that Dr. Picton says. We of the younger generation sometimes forget the immense advance in knowledge of nutrition made during the professional life of men like Dr. Picton. It needed the Boer War to reveal the deterioration in national vigour brought about by a diet of tea, white bread, and jam, and the 1914-18 war to start the first large-scale measures to redress it. The importance of the protective foods, the vitamins, and the trace elements-discussed by Dr. Picton with a wealthof historical insta-tce and personal experience-is still too little known to the general public. Coal and agriculture are to be the two main factors in our readjustment to the post-war world, and it is therefore fitting that a group of doctors practising between the coalfie! ds of South Lancashire and the rich grass-lands of Cheshire should have signed the medical testament on which Dr. Picton's book is to some extent a commen-tary. We wish them success in their proselytizing, advisingthem only to be SLure to basetheir preaching on sound evidence. LJ WITTIS.