The walang sangit — the malodorous rice bug that attacks the ripening ear of paddi — caused, together with drought, an almost complete crop failure in some moekims of V Moekims Montassie in Groot-Atjeh in 1936–1937, a fact Dr. C. E. Gomperts used to test whether food supply alone explained the distribution of xerophthalmie.
The plague of 1936-1937
Gomperts recorded that 1936 and 1937 were marked by long-continued drought, so that the paddi planting failed to take well, with the exception of the planting in VI Moekims Lhong and Moekim Lam-Teuba. Since there was no artificial irrigation of the sawah fields in Groot-Atjeh and one was therefore dependent on rainfall — except in those moekims, where irrigation was fed by mountain streams that supplied enough water even in the dry seasons — the failure was general. In V Moekims Montassie, besides the drought, “had men ook van een walangsangitplaag te lijden, zoodat in sommige Moekims van dit District eene vrijwel volledige oogstmislukking werd geboekt.”
The test of the dietary theory
Set against the xerophthalmia figures, the crop data showed that in Montassie, with a great crop failure, the xerophthalmia frequency “weinig verschilde van die van de vallei-Moekims Baet, met een veel beteren oogst.” Together with the parallel findings for Lhong and Lam-Teuba, this led Gomperts to conclude that “men alleen met den factor voeding het xerophthalmie-vraagstuk niet kan oplossen” — one cannot solve the xerophthalmia question with the factor of nutrition alone.
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.