Something Simple, Something Good .....

After reading my article on "Have no fear, apple cider is here!", my toastmaster friend, Alice Quah sent me the following article which I thought might benefit my readers as well. Something simple, something soothing and good. It is sometimes good to go back to the basics.

Do keep in mind. No harm trying should the situation arises.
Simply simple..........

When someone gets diarrhoea, sometimes the solution is so easy, we
wonder why anyone has to suffer.

If you google "BRATY" you find that the solution is simply to take

Bananas
Rice
Apple
Toast / Tea
Yoghurt

The websites show postings by people who claim the method
doesn't work
for them or their babies or children.

Of all the ingredients here, the most potent is Rice, but not in the
usual form we eat it in, and neither would rice porridge work
too well.

The secret is in rice water.

This is already known in this region. Ask your maids -- Sri Lankan,
Indonesian, Filipina and they would know about it.

My Malaysian relatives know about it.

(My mother) knew about it. When Dr Albert Winsemius came to Singapore
for a farewell and thank you dinner in his honour, he brought
along his
wife Aly and his granddaughter, Jolijn. Both women came down
with very
bad gastroenteritis. They saw the doctor who gave them
medication. It
was slow to work.

Mother boiled some rice in lots of water and went to their
hotel with
two 1.5L bottles of rice water.

I cringed in shame at the offer of this folk remedy, which
seemed so
primitive to me. Never heard of this cure before. To my
surprise, it
worked, and they were even able to go out for dinner the next
day. Both
were exclaiming how the rice water did the trick of making them well
again. Well, lucky it worked, I thought to myself.

I was discussing this some years back with Kim Ng, the ex-matron
of KK
Hospital. She said, yes, that is what Professor Wong Hock Boon, the
notable paediatrician teaches. I was shocked and made some
comment how
could he? It was common knowledge so what had he to do with it?

Many months later, I regretted laughing at it. Dr Christina Shanta
Emmanuel, who is the CEO of...uh, which group I have forgotten. Either
National Health Group, or Polyclinics, or whatever.. regarded me
seriously when I brought up the topic like it was good fun. She said
that Prof Wong Hock Boon had presented a paper on it. At some
conference. After he had done clinical trials.

Then his results were published in the Lancet, the Medical
Journal all
doctors read. In fact, said Shanta, he was credited for saving
the lives
of 2 million African babies by this method.

Ah, so! I am impressed.

It is rice water and not rice, that does the trick. I have found it
effective again and again. You take a handful of rice and boil
it in a
large saucepan with lots of water. Like three or four large glasses.
Then you cool that and drink the water. If you are in a hurry to
relieve the ailing person, take the saucepan off the fire and
dunk it in a
frying pan or basin of cool water with ice cubes if necessary.

This gives the patient a chance to drink the rice water sooner
and cure
himself or herself sooner.

When drinking the rice water, make sure there is lots of it. You
have to
tell the patient that enough water must go in to line your guts from
throat to other end, all 10 to 12 metr es of it. If you take
rice, it
stays in the stomach. If you take broth, some of it may go into the
small intestine.

But if you take rice water, it will carry rice grains to every
inch of
your small and large intestine to the end where the problem is.

How does it work? Even Prof Wong Hock Boon doesn't know. Go to

http://rehydrate.org/dd/dd06.htm#page2



It is good to pass on the news to everyone you know because the
complaint is so common and people suffer unnecessarily. You
would be
doing your friends a great favour to relieve them of their
misery when
the occasion arises.