A new way to cure strikes (1944)

From the February 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Dr. Sanderson-Wells says, “I am convinced that on a proper diet there would be no illness and no strikes or labour disputes after two generations.” (Star, 21 July, 1943.) He backs this up by quoting experiments at the Rockefeller Institution, where vitamin B deficiency was shown to lead to apathy, irritability and finally non co-operation.

He, of course, does not mean that workers are underfed under Capitalism, certainly not, but only that their otherwise "sufficient’’ food lacks vitamin B. 

Therefore, workers, when your master wishes to lower your wages, increase your hours or otherwise make your slavery more irksome, don’t enter into disputes and strikes; go out and buy vitamin B tablets and everything will be well. You will be happy and your boss will be happy. Then you can co-operate with him and perhaps suggest a further decrease in your wages.

If the claims for Carter’s little liver pills could be substantiated they would prove a useful adjunct. They are supposed to remove liverishness (a conveniently vague term covering causes that could not all be due to liver disease). It is claimed that they do not act as a mere purgative, but induce the flow of that two pints of bile necessary to clear the system, giving you a bright clear skin. ”It cures depression.” (How useful nowadays.)

It is doubtful whether the flow of bile would produce this result, but experiments on animals show that these pills "produce,” in the words of a contribution to the “British Medical Journal," September 25th, 1943, "no increase in bile flow.” If these claims are substantiated it would seem that the good effects of these pills are due purely to autosuggestion or the healthiness of mankind.

The "B.M.J.” states that this work points to a distant goal: the unbiased examination of all patent medicines and their claims.

Saul Lenton