Mevrouw Van Stockum was a Netherlands-Indies medical researcher whose findings on the vitamin A content of the milk of indigenous mothers, and whose interpretation of the nature of xerophthalmie, were adopted by Dr. C. E. Gomperts in Gomperts’s report of 1940.
The vitamin A content of mothers’ milk
Through the investigations of Mevrouw Van Stockum, Dr. J. H. de Haas and Ir. Meulemans among indigenous mothers on Java, it was established that the vitamin A content of the milk of these women was much lower than that of European women.
Gomperts applied the finding to Groot-Atjeh: since the nutrition of the Atjehnese population was “zeker minderwaardiger” than that of the population on Java, the vitamin A content of the mothers’ milk of this population group was to be expected low as well. Combined with the Atjehnese custom — as on Java — of geprotraheerde borstvoeding (protracted breast-feeding, eighteen to twenty months), this explained the concentration of xerophthalmia in the 0–5 age group: the low vitamin A level sufficed up to a certain point, after which growth, other developmental processes and probably other factors depressed it further into a state of hypo- or avitaminosis “die de deur opendoet voor de xerophthalmie.”
The nature of xerophthalmia
Van Stockum held that xerophthalmia was the consequence of “een gemeenschappelijke grond-oorzaak en een coïncidentie” — a common underlying cause and a coincidence — as against Tijssen’s view that it was a constitutie-ziekte (constitutional disease). Gomperts declared himself inclined to share this latter view: “Schrijver is geneigd dit laatste inzicht te deelen.”
The position became the fourth point of his closing summary: xerophthalmia and keratomalacie were to be regarded as eye conditions with one common underlying cause — an a- or hypovitaminosis A — complicated by a coincidence of a more drastic nature in keratomalacia than in xerophthalmia.
Her report of Mulock Houwer’s work
It was through a communication of Mevrouw Van Stockum that Gomperts cited the investigations of Mulock Houwer at the C.B.Z. at Batavia, and those at Semarang and Bandoeng, showing a proportionally greater frequency of xerophthalmia among toddlers than among infants.
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.