Watching the World
“Jesus Christ of Malawi”?
◆ Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda recently was called “Jesus Christ of Malawi,” disclosed the Malawi News of December 6, 1975. Rather than rejecting this expression ascribed to Mr. L. Juma Phiri, District Party Chairman at Dedza, President Banda reportedly “explained that any Minister of religion who was a true christian of whatever denomination would not be angry with the remarks by the Party Chairman.” According to the newspaper, Dr. Banda said that if a true Christian read how the Jews started “thinking of Messiah to come and save them, he would understand why Messiah was everything for the Jews.” According to Dr. Banda, “the same thing was true” in Malawi, the newspaper reported, “because before he returned home people were looking for someone to save them from the colonial yoke. He said if any church leader was offended then he is not a christian.”
“Swords into Plowshares”
◆ Just outside the precincts of the United Nations and opposite its secretariat building is a wall bearing the inscription: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” For years the source of those words went unidentified. In recent months, however, the name “Isaiah” was inscribed under this quotation. Bible readers will find it at Isaiah 2:4 in the King James Version.
Women’s Voices in Song
◆ Some 600 Israeli Jews recently registered complaints with the national radio network. They held that it should not broadcast the singing of women. Thereafter a leading rabbi of the country’s Sephardic community ruled that the religious could listen to the singing of a woman if they did not know her and the melody was not a love song. Interestingly, after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea centuries ago, the men sang a song to Jehovah God. In response to the men, Moses’ well-known sister “Miriam sang unto them.” (Ex. 15:1, 20, 21, The Holy Scriptures, Jewish Publication Society of America) The fact that the men knew her posed no problem at all.
The Ancients Had It First
◆ Today some people either divide their gardens or surround them with marigolds or other plants that are said to ward off insect pests. Others spread sea kelp on their plots to keep potato beetles at a distance, or they plant cabbage in leaf-filled ground so that maggots will be repelled. But a recent study by Canadian scientists shows that agriculturists of ancient times used similar methods. Some early writers recommended placing rows of such plants as cumin, garlic and ivy alongside other plants with a view to repelling or killing insects. To fight weeds, Cato and Varro suggested covering the ground with the residue remaining after the oil is removed from crushed olives. Pliny the Elder advised mixing cypress leaves with the seeds of vegetables to keep maggots from devouring the roots of plants. To cope with fungal plant diseases, Democritus favored soaking seeds in leek juice before they were planted. According to the survey, ancient Greek and Roman farmers used substances prepared from minerals and chemicals readily available in plants, trees, animals and the soil. Their battle against insect pests included coating seeds, using smoke and employing pesticides, herbicides and substances that helped to control rodents.
Cancer Death Upsurge
◆ Normally, in the United States the annual cancer death-rate increase is one percent per 100,000 individuals. For some undetermined reason, however, it jumped 5.2 percent during the first seven months of 1975, according to provisional data released by the National Center for Health Statistics. Comparable figures have been released by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. For the first half of 1975, there was a 6-percent cancer death-rate increase among its life-insurance policy holders, though the increase had not risen above one percent annually for years back to 1968. This company’s statistics for the first six months of 1975 indicated a 7-percent rise in lung-cancer deaths, compared to the same six-month period in 1974. The foregoing provisional statistics for the nation were based on only a 10-percent sample of deaths. Nevertheless, American Cancer Society statisticians have called the recent increase “unbelievable, a baffling mystery.”
Proper Use of Antibiotics
◆ United States physicians made a poor showing in a 1974 test on antibiotic therapy. A recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine reported that the average score for 4,143 doctors who took a fifty-question test on use of antibiotics was 68 percent, or 34 correct answers. Incorrect use of antibiotics is a notable health-care problem in the country.
State of Health
◆Japan’s Health and Welfare Ministry recently announced the results of a health survey involving 700 communities throughout the nation. Some 50,900 individuals belonging to 15,300 households were interviewed. It was found that about one out of four Japanese wore eyeglasses. Also, one in every ten persons had experienced some illness during the year. However, there had been a decline in the number of the sick. The figure had dropped 20.8 percent, to 101.2 per thousand in 1974, compared with 127.7 in the previous year. According to The Japan Times, the Ministry ascribed the drop “to the absence of mass outbreaks of influenza in 1974.”
World’s Highest Fire-Death Ratio
◆ According to a report released in November by Japan’s Fire Defense Agency, that nation had the highest fire-death ratio in the world during 1974. For every 1,000 fires an average of about 24 individuals died. In the 67,712 fires reviewed, 1,646 persons had met death. However, the number of fires had decreased 7.3 percent and deaths were down 12 percent from the year 1973.
England’s Elms Endangered
◆ During the last five years some six million elm trees in southern England have been destroyed by a disease for which no definite cure has yet been found. Dutch elm disease (so named because Dutch scientists undertook most of the early studies of it) is spread by a type of flying Scolytus beetle. The pest is attracted only by elms and, in springtime, deposits poisonous fungus in the vascular system of the tree. This prevents both nutrients and water from reaching its leaves. The result? By the summer, dead branches are found on the stricken trees. It is estimated that 20,000 elm trees are being killed daily in southern England, and cases of this disease have been noted in the northern part of the country.
The Long Jump
◆ For some time four inmates of a prison in Sicily practiced the long jump. Officials apparently approved of this form of exercise. But imagine their consternation when all four convicts jumped a twelve-foot span from the roof of a prison building to one outside, and then made their escape!
Adult Education
◆ In the year 1957, one out of thirteen eligible adults in the United States was taking part in adult-education programs. According to recent information from federal records, however, the number of participants has increased. It now stands at one adult in eight.
Do You Like Raw Fish?
◆ If you enjoy raw fish such as herring, it is good to realize that there is a possible health danger in eating them. The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, warns that many fish caught off the shores of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans are contaminated with larvae that can be killed only by normal cooking of the fish.
People and Pet Foods
◆ Citing what he calls “conservative” figures, Dr. Edward H. Peeples, Jr., assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in the city of Richmond, has estimated “that pet foods constitute a significant part of the diet of at least 225,000 American households.” About a million persons are said to be involved. Though Dr. Peoples’ conclusions are not founded on statistical information, he has been able to compile considerable evidence that many people eat pet foods due to necessity. A report issued in 1974 by the Senate Nutrition Committee stated that “one-third of the pet food purchased in slums is eaten by humans.” Although that figure was based merely on “an educated guess” of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, such information poignantly illustrates the poverty and hardship experienced by many people.
School Crime Jumps
◆ Reported instances of violence and crime in New York City schools were up 55 percent for September through November, the first three months of the current academic year, compared with the same period last year. This was so despite the fact that the school system was nearly closed down for six days in September due to a strike. The Board of Education disclosed that reported robberies of students, teachers and other persons on school property reached 173, a rise of 67 from last year. From September through November, 1975, there were 289 assaults on teachers reported, 95 more than there were for the same three-month period in 1974.
Enzyme for Snakebite
◆ The enzyme trypsin has reportedly been used with success in cases of snakebite. Victims die because nerve conduction is blocked by protein molecules in the venom of elapid snakes such as mambas and cobras. However, trypsin breaks down such molecules. Experimental animals all survived the effects of the poison when a dose of this enzyme was injected within fifteen minutes. At least half the animals lived if trypsin was administered fifty minutes after they were bitten. In reporting these findings published in a Chinese scientific periodical, The Journal of the American Medical Association commented: “The antivenoms or antisera against snake toxins are expensive, not always readily available, and may cause severe reactions. The simple injection of trypsin into the bite area is a valuable addition to available methods of elapid snakebite treatment.”
Highest Tax Burden
◆ Taxes of all kinds have been rising in most nations. Which country pays the most? The Wall Street Journal reports that the people who live in Israel do, stating “Most Israelis anticipate that taxes will be raised again—though taxes already amount to 46% of Israel’s gross national product, making Israelis the world’s hardest-hit taxpayers.”
World Road Toll
◆ About a quarter of a million people world wide die in road accidents each year, according to the U.N.’s World Health magazine. The U.S. leads the list, with about 50,000 deaths annually, while France and Western Germany follow, with about 16,000 each. Italy is next, with about 10,000, and Great Britain has over 7,000. On the other hand, only 7 persons die per 100 million passenger miles in America, whereas 13 die in Britain, 55 in Kenya, and 65 in Uganda.
Women at Work
◆ The percentage of working women is greater in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union than it is in the West. Considering women 15 to 64 years of age, 82 percent are employed in Russia, compared to 49 percent in the United States. Other sample percentages are: East Germany, 80; Hungary, 73; Poland, 63; Czechoslovakia, 59; Sweden, 59; Denmark, 58; Japan, 56; England, 52; West Germany, 49; Italy, 29.