Edison: De Rebus Sanitatis

Thomas Alva Edison last week again knuckled to the U. S. insistency that a celebrity be a pundit on all manner of things. His medium was Review of Reviews (monthly). Thus from his seat at West Orange, N. J. did Thomas Edison pontificate de rebus sanitatis: Are there certain definite fields in which the research of the future will lie?

"Yes, health through biology and chemistry. . . .

Sickness is pretty hard on the workman now. It's hard for them to get a good doctor, and the proper care is expensive. There is too much sickness, too. Something will have to be done about it, and that is where biology and chemistry come in. . . . "I have been experimenting with milk now for about eight years. For the last three years I have taken hardly anything else.* I came in with milk [he chuckled] and I guess I'll go out with it. It's the only balanced ration--balanced by the Great Chemist, who is far away." [He raised his stubby pencil over his head, toward the ceiling.] Will science tell us to eat less, as it has told us to drink less? "Eighty percent of our deaths are due to overeating. After the age of 21 a large variety and quantity of food is unnecessary. All those things crowd the stomach and cause poisons. It takes cour age to learn restraint, but all that eating is unnecessary.

I find that my weight keeps up on a glass of milk alone, every two hours. You eat less, yet you find your weight keeps up, and you feel better. Mrs. Edison tried it, always taking less and less, until [again the chuckle] she said she would have to stop, otherwise she wouldn't be eating anything at all, but would still feel fine." Will more research in health--biology and chemistry--mean less in electricity-- and mechanics? "No, it brings new fields to work in." Whereupon, after a few more questions & answers on stray subjects, Dr. Edison tucked a napkin in his collar and quietly swigged his ration of milk from a thermos bottle.

* Except a rare half orange or glass of orange juice.

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