Every Second Child by Archie Kalokerinos by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

16 Malnutrition

Tom died in 1971. He was thirty-six years old, an Aborigine of fine physique, a little lean perhaps, exceptionally strong (his work as a wool presser demanded that), and very active. He drank heavily. One night, after a particularly heavy bout, his family heard him moaning. This was not unusual, so they ignored it. In the morning Tom was dead. At first it was thought that he had been poisoned. Then someone suggested that he had been “sung” to death and his son vowed vengeance on the person thought responsible. The shanty in which the death had occurred became the first target of the ritual that had to follow—it was burned to the ground. In old times there may have been a killing, or maybe several, but this was the time of the white man’s law and the white man’s ways (up to a point anyway), so I was called upon to determine the cause of death. I found it in the coronary arteries that were blocked by patches of thickening. The lead was simple: small but definite hemorrhages showing on the outside of the muscle of the heart. Tom had suffered from a coronary occlusion. A few minutes later I was facing his son. In his eyes was the question that was tearing at his soul. “Who killed my father?” Most physicians would have thought the answer simple. In fact I gave the simple answer but a thousand questions and a thousand answers were plaguing me. The truth as I could see it was horrifying in its implications, yet as clear as the sun that blazed at us from a cloudless sky. I had killed Tom. And sharing the blame were millions of other white people who had taken the Aborigines from their land and forced them to eat foods that deposited cholesterol in their tissues and arteries and eventually led to diseases such as the one I had just uncovered in the autopsy room. Could I explain this to the lad who was facing me now? I looked at his fine lithe body. Not so long ago I had seen him boxing in the ring. He was quick , alert, proud and an obvious winner. His father had been like that, as I remembered him in 1957. Then what was going to be the fate of the son in 1984? We now have the knowledge to forecast this with a considerable degree of accuracy. Throughout Australia, an alarming proportion of Aborigines live on diets consisting of sugar, white bread, jam and sausage. There is very little vitamin C in this. The body changes some of the sugar and bread into cholesterol that, particularly in the absence of vitamin C, is deposited in the arteries and tissues. Thus, often in early adult life, many Aborigines suffer from cardiovascular disease and maturity onset-type diabetes. The incidence of complications from these conditions is understandably high. Blindness is common. Early death is common. Smoking and heavy drinking make things much worse. The solution, naturally, is to change diets.

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