Word: bantu
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Bulu dialect of the African Bantu language can be drummed almost as well as spoken. Reason: it is even more a language of tones than official Chinese. Where the Chinese use four tones, the Bulus have five-two high, two low and one in the middle. So distinct are the pitches and rhythms of the language that sometimes a couple of people "too far apart to hear actual words call back and forth using only the syllables kiki in the tones of the words they would employ in ordinary conversation." The thick and the thin sides of the drum...
Several summers ago, Dr. Foulger learned that Bantu miners in South Africa sweat out large quantities of vitamin C (found in oranges and lemons), frequently develop muscle weakness, even though they eat plenty of fresh fruits & vegetables. With this clue in mind, Du Pont doctors gave their workers two vitamin C tablets (ascorbic acid) a day, along with common salt tablets, to replenish the salt lost in perspiration. Result: cases of heat exhaustion, formerly four or five a day, disappeared, even when the temperature soared to over 100 degrees. The pills, said Dr. Foulger, "should prove useful in steel mills...
...children were of many different groups: "English, Afrikander [native Dutch or Huguenot], Jewish, Bantu, Cape Colored, Indian and Chinese." They had to put a ten-pound shot, run 100 and 600 yards, at any pace they pleased. After each child finished, the doctors made careful notes on how tired he was. Amazing was the finding: all racial groups of the same age had the same endurance. Said the doctors: "No more impressive evidence for the basic equality of man has ever been adduced...