Levertraan — cod-liver oil, Oleum jecoris aselli — was the principal therapeutic and preventive agent against xerophthalmie and keratomalacie in the Netherlands Indies, and the single largest item of medicine distributed during Dr. C. E. Gomperts’s eye survey of Groot-Atjeh in 1937.
Distribution during the survey
The statement of expenditure for the survey from March to December 1937 records 404.1 kilogrammes of Oleum jecoris aselli distributed, valued at ƒ202.05 — the largest single item of medicine by value after the malaria after-treatment tablets and the santonin-calomel tablets.
In treatment
Gomperts recorded that when circumstances changed favourably “door levertraan-toediening en verstrekken van vitamine-A rijke voeding” — by the administration of cod-liver oil and the supply of vitamin-A-rich food — the corneal changes of xerophthalmia often disappeared, whereas if circumstances remained unfavourable the corneal changes appeared as in keratomalacia. This observation was the ground of his argument, against Professor Mulock Houwer, that the lesser corneal changes were a preliminary stage of keratomalacia rather than a distinct condition.
In a seventeen-year-old youth with hemeralopie (night blindness) and Bitôt’s spots, both subjective and objective signs disappeared promptly “na een vitamine-A-rijke voeding en therapie,” allowing the diagnosis to be made without determining the blood vitamin A level.
Cod-liver oil was also the therapy on which Gomperts and Tijssen agreed without reservation: against Tijssen’s ninth proposition on xerophthalmia, “Therapie: levertraan,” Gomperts recorded simply “Ook de meening van schrijver.”
As a preventive measure
The second of Gomperts’s five recommended measures for combating xerophthalmia and preventing blindness through keratomalacia was the distribution of cod-liver oil to the population “met royale hand” — with a liberal hand.
In the mission’s work
The same remedy had earlier been singled out for praise by Tijssen in the work of the Protestant zending, which by the treatment of avitaminose with cod-liver oil had, in his words, prevented early blindness in hundreds of children.
See Also
Source
Oriënteerend oogheelkundig onderzoek bij de Atjehsche bevolking van Groot-Atjeh gedurende 1937 (“Orienting Ophthalmological Survey among the Atjehnese Population of Groot-Atjeh during 1937”), by Dr. C. E. Gomperts, offprint from the Geneeskundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië, Afl. 19, Deel 80 (1940), pp. 1191-1238 (Batavia-Centrum: G. Kolff & Co.). Received by the editors 25 October 1939. Offprint DLP-157, Bibliotheek KITLV.