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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1959-04-02, Page 2lea Captain With Healing Fingers The Dl.ttel). ship. Prins Willem )I was steaming at 10 knots south Of Iceland when, she was truck amidships by a torpedo. Three seconds later a second tor" pedo struck her, The ship split in two and sank in four minutes. Feike Vias, first mate of the stricken freighter, found him- self struggling to keep afloat in the freezing, stormy water. Ndt a powerful swimmer, he saw some wreckage and strug- gled towards it and clung with half-frozen fingers to an up- turned lifeboat. Near him he saw another seaman, struggling feebly in the water and, des- pite his own danger, Vlas grab- bed at the man and dragged him to the boat. The two men, who were later joined by another, clung to the lifeboat for twenty minutes un- til they saw a battered but up- right lifeboat drifting past Henk Dierneer and Frans Diepeveen struck out for this boat and reached it safely and, with scraps of planks taken from the sea, managed to manoeuvre it elose enough for the near-dead Vies to clutch at the low gun- wale and haul himself aboard. Daylight of April 9th, 1941, found the three men almost fro- zen stiff in the boat with Diepe- veen violently seasick and trying to throw himself overboard to die quickly. As Diemeer fought to prevent Diepeveen doing so, Vlas crawl- ed through the water - logged boat and reached out to help bold the sick man down. "Take it easy," Vlas urged, "we are all right now. We will be picked up!" To help pacify the violently sick deckhand, First Mate Vlas passed his right hand over the roan's brow, speaking soothing- ly to him all the time. "I cannot- describe• what happened," Vias said in. Canada recently. "It was like a miracle. the seaman calmed at once and almost instantly stopped detch- Ing. He sat up with the water in the boat up to his waist and looked around in bewilderment." Vlas—now a captain—did not at that time realize the curious and quite inexplicable power he field in his fingertips. All that be knew was that somehow his aet of touching the sailor's head dad immediately soothed the intro and stopped his retching. Xext day, Diemeer, too, be. lame violently sick and towards evening he was almost dement- ed. Fearing that he might jump overboard in the night to end his misery, Vlas sat with him and tried to comfort him. He reached ever and wiped the sea water from. the man't forehead. Again that inexplicable change came over the man the moment Vlas's hand brushed his brow. Diem- eer stopped retching and recov- ered considerably. Next morning the lookout man aboard the .Swedish ship Inlip- varen sighted the lifeboat and the three men were soon rescued. Captain Vies, who is new fif- ty-six years old, never gave the incidents aboard the lifeboat an- other thought. He returned to sea as soon as he was well enough. It was not until 1947, when he was chief officer of a Dutch migrant ship en-route to Can- ada, that another strange inci- dent occurred. He was on the bridge when the ship's doctor casually mentioned a rather un- usual case to him. "I hope we run out of this lout weather soon," the doctor Said. "There's a poer woman down below who has been vic. lently seasick ever since we lees Rotterdam hasen't kept even teaspoonful of water down, She also has a temperature and her head feels like a ball Of fire." At that moment captain Vlas suddenly remembered the tesa- !rig lifeboat in 1941, He decided to go to see the woman, and as' he stood next to her bunk and saw how ill she was, he leaned Over and placed his right palm on her forehead, Suddenly, the woman opened her eyes and tried to sit up, A nurse hurried over with a glass of water which the woman swallowed. "I'm starving," the passenger said. "Can I have something to eat, please?" The woman was fed and the next day on deck she walked up to the first officer and began to thank him for curing her. "The doctor cured you; Mad- am," Vias said. "I am not the doctor." "Oh, no," she said, "you cur- ed me of my sickness. The doc- tor told me." 3 One the very next voyage homewards several seasick pas- sengers were instructed by the ship's doctor to report to Feike Vias and to ask' him if he would touch their foreheads with his fingertips, Even the sceptical had to be- lieve when one after another the passengers were cured al- most instantly of their seasick- ness. It was uncanny, unbeliev- able — yet each person who was violently seasick recovered with- in moments of being touched. Captain Vlas has never dis- cussed his strange ability fully. "There is nothing to tell," he says. "I cannot explain it. No one can." But this extraordinary ability. does not end with seasickness. Captain Vlas, who was only re- cently appointed master of the flagship of the Fjell-Oranje Lines, diseovered quite by ac- cident that his magic fingers can also cure such things as tooth- ache and, headache. His passengers fully appreci- ate his ability for recently, when , the Prins Willem van Oranje ran into a North Atlantic gale and many were seasick, Captain Itlas was so quick with his mir- aculous cures that at the end Of the volage the passengers got together and conferred on him an honour which is probably unique in shipping annals. As briefly reported in the prase recently, they drew up an 'illuminated parchment confer- ring en him a "Certificate of Passengerhood." What can account for the strange curative powers in Cap- tain Vlas's fingertips? From sci- entists there is only one reply: "We cannot explain it. It can- not be faith-healing because his passengers do'not participate in the sense that they believe. He touches them, often without them even knowing about it, and cures them. There simply is no logical explanation for Cap- tain Vlas's healing fingers." A woman slipped on a sub- way escalator and started to tumble down to the bottom. Half-way down she collided with a man, knocking him down, and the two continued downwards together. After they had reached the bottom, the women, still dazed, continued to sit on the men's chest. Looking up at her he said politely: "I'm sorry, madam, but this is as far as I go." Man's conscience does " not prevent him from sinning, it merely prevents him from en- joying his sin. GLIOOMETER, SpeecPskating competitars. at -Squaw ValleVi get together' an One thing, They both want to ktioWt flick ,ia the :kW Gadget, pictured, is a Miniatiire, Spring= rep fled sled itifilfatate It glides compared agaiiiit per 'famistoice figUreS OK ice of other rinks. Gadget belongs to' .cistittatit team Manager AfilkaraNi left, WatChitig the test is Swedish speed skater Hasa' Wilkeirristano PArtaNGERS DEBARKING FROM A JET: In their lungs 'an un- invited hitch-hiker. NEW: STATE CAPITOL IWWING Historic lolani Palate 'fa Honolulu will be the capital. building of the newest State of the Union', HO Wain If was the`tePt•of the Territorial gaVern., men?, 'TM 'WO itiler Of the Wand iitoriarthy, tree' 'eft the palate an July 1894, kawaii becb, ie H, republic. PARKING PURSE, — This Ger- man handbag has art unusual purpose. It features a small alarm clock which can be set to synchronize with the driver's parking meter. When the time is up, the alarm rings and milady hurries back to her car. Pretty Ute Richter demonstrates in Off en bach. Slapping Their Best Customers The harder we look at the im- position of quotas on petroleum imports "curiouser and curious- er" it looks, Epecially as a de- fense measure. And it is put for- ward chiefly' as a means of in- suring, supplies in wartime.' The argument is that unlesi Arneri- can producers are assured a larger share of the domestic market they cannot maintain the exploring, refining, and shipping operations to insure oil were out-. side supplies shut off. At times we have been told that this need not mean an in- crease in prices. But immediately following recent announcement of mandatory quotas came a price boost in some areas. And it is only reasonable to suppoSe that if domestic production is more costly higher prices will be required. So this method means that to help dbMeitic producers prices must be raised or, at least held up — on all consump- tion. We have been told also sthat the depletion allowance of 27 1/2 per cent on taxes was intended to enable producers whose wells were being depleted to explore for new supplies — for their own benefit and the nation's. This subsidizing of exploration has been sharply questioned. It also is defended as a defense measure. But it doesn't add to the price of all oil in the Ame- rican market — assquotas tend to do. It is well known that Canada and the United States are con- sidered a unit for defense. In-. deed, their air defenses are link- ed. In wartime Canada could be an indispensable source.of oil and gas supplies. All the arguments for developing United States sup- plies as a defense measure apply equally to Canadian supplies. In- stead the quota system retards the opening of Canadian fields and the building of pipelines, It also slaps the United States' best customer in a very tender spot. Strange kind of defense! — An Editorial in. The Christian Sci- ence Monitor. More Zip for Ocean Ships Ocean liners may soon travel faster than express, trains; says Professor S. Smoleniec, of South Africa's University of Witwaters- rand. He forsees giant liners sweep- ing across the Atlantic at 121 knots and submarines travelling even faster. Before this is fea- sible, he explained in e recent lecture, steam-jet propulsion will have supplanted the present marine screw drive, Experiments sin the United States and Australia, designed to perfect this system, hold out great promise. As the professor points out jet propulsion was tirsn thought of back in 1787. But not until the last war was the idea revived to revolutionize aircraft engin, eerieg and guided missile pro- duction. The great snag to the screw system is that as speed increases, So efficiency decreases. But with steam jet prepuleieh the reeetee. beide ttem. When a ship, so driven, travels at thirty-three knots the effiei- eney will be four per cent.• But increase that speed. to' 121 knots, and the ''efficiency will be more than twelve ,nee cent, say the experts, .141y daughter and her hue. band are typical of young Mate rieidclitecwou?pniee to-day," jurheS, believe in starting with 11" tare' sesentiele—like TV."' OYOWYAgNNiTT IDEA Staff Correspondent Washington— Flu bugs have, started to travel by jet. Public Health officials believe that many of the viruses respona- ible for influenza• outbreaks in the U.S. and. Canada this year are tiny tourist from Europe who hitched a ride In the nostrils and lungs of jet passengere. Influenza has been sweeping England and Wales. since early February and has killed almost 1,000 persons. Russia also is re- ported hard-hit by flu, but the disease rate there is not known. Other countries suffering are Sweden, France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Bulgaria. Travelers from Europe are be- lieved to have carried bugs that caused the recent flu outbreaks in Washington, D,C., Maryland, Virginia, Michiga n, Indiana, Massaehussetts, New Jersey and Georgia. Those who traveled by jet probably set a transatlantic speed record for spreading a flu epidemic. For years health experts have viewed, faster commercial trans- portation as g boon to viruses, Transatlantic travel by ship used to be slow enough so that passen- gers who had beep exposed to the flu could develop the dis- ease and get well before reaching their destination. It takes from two to seven days.for flu bugs to make a per- son, sick after entering his body. Average duration of the ailment is four days. Now, however, a person can travel across .the Atlantic by ship in four days and by plane In a few hours. Travelers can pick up a virus before leaving a foreign ,country and not get sick until several days after they get home. The result is that chances are in- creased for people to contract a disease that .originated thousands of miles away. ' Luckily, the flu bug that's do- Recipes for cooking • ,chicken are by no means scarce, but the following method of baking chicken on top of the stove may be new to‘ some of you. It is especially useful for small fami- lies or if, for some ,reason, you do not wish to use your oven. * . * * For the top - of - range stuffed chicken, select a stewing chick- en that weighs from 3 1/2 . to 4 pounds, ready-to-cook weight. Rinse in cold 'water. Drain • well. Spoon stuffing into neck and body cavities. Truss this way — tuck drumsticks under the band of skin and' tie the wings .flat against breast, bringing cord over drnmstieks. Using just enough moderately hot cooking fat to cover the bottom, of your Dutch oven, brown slowly, turn- ing to brown all sides — about 45 minutes. (Additional fat comes from chicken as it browns. Re- duce beat. Add 1/4 cup water; cover tightly and. simmer until fork tender, Add small whole onions and carrots the last 45 minutes. Prepare gravy with drippings, * If you want to roast your chicken in your oven buy a roast- ing chicken, rub cavity with salt, stuff, and truss it, Brush skin thoroughly with fat and place the chicken, breast up or down whichever you prefer, on a rack at least 1/2 -inch high in a shallow, open 'pan, Cover top of chicken with thin fat-moisten- ed cloth. Do not Wrap bird in cloth (the cloth helps in uni- form browning and makes bast- ing unnecessary). Roast at a con- stant temperature of 325° F. Do not sear, add water or covet. If cloth dries during cooking, moisten cloth with fat drippings in pan. If you have started it breast down, turn breast up when about three-quarters done. This is the approximate roast- ing time for ready-to-cook weights: 21/2 -31/2 pounds, 2-3 hours; 31/2 -4% pounds, 3=3 1/a hours; 4 3/4 -8 pounds, 8 1/2 to 4', hours. T6 Preparer Chicken Gravy "Drippings" means thee-fat and meat juices which collect in the' 'easting pbj-i, Pour dripping§ ititti Measuring , cup, leaving brown residue in part, For each tun, of gravy desired? use INg table= spoons each Of lat.,(aritt flout and 1 cup liquid, Measure the quantity of fat needed back into tie roasting pan, Plaee over 16* heat and cook gotkl$ until iittothyi. .ring constantly with pancake tinter, 'blenders efedeiit or Whisk: Acid MO-Sifted flour to fat; Blend *Oriel:tit* and brown", if des tared. Add the tool or hikeWarm (het hot) liquid aii at aline. Cook and stir Constantly Until • formly thickened, While Stirring; Mg the damage this year is milder than the Asian variety that swept Most of the globe in 195748. It's the Great Lakes strain ,of the Type-B virus, Influenza viruses are divided into five major classifications A, B, C, D and E. Each class has several subdivisions called strains. Asian flu was caused by a partelular strain of the Type- 4 virus. Asian flu is believed respon- sible for most of the influenza in Russia and Bulgaria this year. Some casee alto have been found in England along with the pre- dominate B variety. Public Health officials know of only one case of Asian flu in the U.S. A teen-aged girl con- tracted the disease on board a ship returning from Europe and was hospitalized in New York as soon" as the' ship docked. - Usual ,symptonfs of Type-B virus are chills, sniffles, aches and pains and a fever that sel- dom goes above 101 degrees. The Asian flu often shot temperatures as high as 104. Doctors say that blend brown residue into the gravy. Simmer 5 minutes. Sea- Son to taste. Serve hot. * 4 This morning being cold and rainy, I cast about in thought for something "'nice" for break- fast. A friend, who frequently favors me with delectable But- termilk Hot Cakes when - here for a weekend, was high and dry in her own apartment some miles away but I wanted something right now, write Janet L, Lang in The Christian •Science Monitor. Memory stirred with ,recollec- tions of wintry mornings in Iowa When I would awaken to the beat of a.spoon in a certain aluminum "Johnny Cake" pan. This unmistakable sound coming up the stairway accompanied 'by aroma of frying bacon drew me out of my snugly warmth. The frosty coldness of an unheated 'upstairs gave plenty of encour- agement to. dress quickly (as If this were necessary).' Downstairs, would find Dad just adding the last milk to make sure the batter was thin enough. The kitchen range would be glowing with a 450 degree F. oven ready to do its part, and pans of bubbling fat bed rest is the best cure for Type-B flu, They advise patients to keep warm and call a doctor If their temperature rises much above normal, Most flu victims this year have been children under 13, The tea, son that the bug is picking on youngsters, doctors spy, is that the U.S, has not had a Meier outbreak of TYPP-B flu since. 1945. Kids born after that year have never been exposed to the bug, therefore have never had chance to build up immunity to it, Public Health officials don't ex- pect flu to sweep the country be- on the back of the stove awaited ' the "Johnny Cake" batter. * * I have never seen a recipe for our kind of Johnny Cake in cookbooks. I believe most folks understand it to be a hot bread. eaten with butter .and honey or jelly. Our JOhnny. Cake is of an entirely different consistency, re- maining quite soft in the cen- ter arid having crisp and crusty outsides, and being only about an inch thick when fully.baked. It has no baking powder or soda in it. The secret of success is having the grease in the bak- ing pans hot enough so it will bubble completely over the bat- ter when poured in. Would you 'like to try some? Break 1 egg in a bowl and add: 2 teaspoons salt 1/4 cup sweet milk 1/2 cup' (heaping).cornmeal % cup flour, and mix well. Add about another 'cup of milk to make very thin batter. Put about 1/2 inch lard or other shortenirig in 10" iron skillet (enough to cover batter). Get this piping hot on stove — pour batter into it and ,immediately put'linto hot oven (450 degrees F.) Bake about 12 minutes by which time it will be golden brown on top and have a lacy crust around the sides of the skillet. Serve with butter and syrup. Perhaps you had better double the recipe! 1nPlain.English Three cheers for .John. tak of Norwalk, Conn, .Shostak,. a druggist and state representa, tive, objects to the gobbledygook on Connecticut's highway signs, He has sumbitted a bill to have them translated into plain filnor He is particularly irked by the Connecticut Turnpike sign, which says "Crossing Median • Divider Prohibited" rather than "Don't cross the Centre Strip," • We are with him on, that, if the exponents of bureau- cratic English get a firm grip on the traffic sign business, the old STOP sign is likely to turn .into Decelerate Your Vehicle at a Rate in Terms of Original Speed. That Will Cause All Forwattl. Motion to Piaeontitme at a Point on .a %nine prawn. at a .90- Degree Angle to This. Standard. The sign-painters may not. love Representative ,Shostak, But the ordinary motorist who left his Webster's Unabridged at home is with him all the way,— WORCESTER (Mass.) GAZETTE. Keeping Silence Can Be Dangerous. For eight years a Balham, London, man refused to speak to his wife. The reason, said a di- vorce court judge recently, was 'that'the husband found a letter to' her from another man. The husband, a bus driver, wouldn't say a word, 'even though his wife begged him to speak. Instead he wrote notes such as: "Don't get dinner on. Saturday or Sunday. Dinner money on mantel-piece." Yet all this time the wife cooked his meals and washed his clothes, and they shared the same bedroom, even the same bed. Finding the silence unbear- able, the wife left home, but even then she went to the house at week-ends to clean and cook. Eventually, the husband's soli-• citors wrote asking her to stop these visits, The wife who had suffered se much was granted a decree nisi. because of her husband's deser- tion. His petition alleging she had deserted him was rejected. Another husband, from Bag- shot, Surreyr..4,would send his wife "to Coventry" for months at a time. During those periods, all he said was' "Thank you" for his breakfast, "Good-bye" when he left for work, and "Hullo!" when he returned. Granting a decree nisi to the woman on the grounds of cruel- ty and desertion, the divorce court judge remarked: "That sort of conduct can be more de- vastating than violence." Another wife Complained that the effect of her husband'e long silences made her feel "closed in as if the walls were coming in on me." When, she protested, trier hus- band asked what he should talk about. She replied, "The weather or anything 'rather than remain silent," But the judge refused a de- cree to this wife, saying that such conduct did not amount to cruelty in law. The wife had been looking for an excuse to get rid of her husband, added. the judge. Despite what you may have heard, Alcatraz s still the only pen wth a lifetime guarantee. ISSUE 14 — 1959 Jet-Age Flu Bugs Strike Hitch-Hike on Planes From Europe TABLE TAIIS eiaraAncivews. cause the winter season, in which flu thrives, is almost over. The nearness of spring is also the reason debtors don't recom- mend a mass vaccination pro- ' gram at this time. It takes two shots spaced four to 'six weeks apart to provide immunity against flu. And two weeks are • required after the second dose for the vaccine to take effect. Vaccinations, however, are still recommended for special risk cases such as elderly persons, the chronically ill and pregnant wo- men to give them at least par- tial protection.