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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 29, 1963)
riBPORD MAIL IHlbulMb. MtDrUHU. faA5)t. SWim S3. 1963 A 3 AAoirocco, Swiniiniy Lonmd, Called the .California of Africa By GEORGE A. HALABY United Presi International Rabat, Morocco IUP1) Mo rocco has often been called the California of Africa for the many similarities it bears to the golden state in the new world. Its Arabic name is Al Maghreb El Aksa the ex treme West due to its posi tion in northwest Africa. It is a warm, sunny land of striking physical beauty. Morocco is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the West and the Mediterranean Sea on the north. On the east and southeast it borders Al geria and in the south on Spanish Sahara. Mountains The total area is about cent annually one of 183,000 square miles and its shape resembles California. Morocco is extremely moun tainous. In the North, paral lel to the coast, are the Rif mountains; the central part is traversed by the Atlas ranges. Rich plains stretch to the Atlantic coast while semi desert extends from the southern and eastern Atlas slopes. Morocco's population to tals 12,350,000 of whom li;. 850,000 are Moslems, 160.000 French, 125,000 Jews, 95,000 Algerians and 96,600 Spa nish. Population Increase Its population is increas ing at the rate of 3.25 per highest in the world. Until last year Morocco was ruled by an absolute monarch. But the late King Mohamed V had promised the people a constitution and his son, King Hassan II, fulfilled the promise and submitted the constitution to a public refer endum which was approved by more than 95 per cent of the voters. The nation's first parlia ment will be elected this De cember. It will tone down the king's authority but he will still exercise supreme re ligious power and great in fluence in civil affairs. The the , 36-year-old monarch himself appoints cabinet members and dismisses them. The earliest settlers of Mo rocco were t h e Berbers whose origin is unknown. The Phoenicians in the 12th Century B.C. and later the Carthaginians set up trading posts along the Mediterra nean. By the 8th Century, the ports of Melilla, Tangier, Ra bat and Casablanca were op erating. The Romans, in the 1st Century B.C. penetrated further south. Arab influence reached Morocco in the 7th Century A.D. after the death of the Prophet Mohammed. Berbers were gradually converted to Islam. Achieve Conquest It was the combined Arab- Berber armies the Moors who achieved extensive con-1 ish-French-Berber quests in Spain and France where they were checked in 732. Islamic rule of Spain lasted some 400 years. Relations between t h e United States and Morocco have always been cordial. Morocco was the first coun try to recognize the infant United States of America in 1776. The . sultan also entered into agreement whereby American trade was guaran teed in the western and southern Mediterranean from pirates of the Barbary Coast. Morocco boasts the ' oldest university in the world the University of Karouine in Fes which was built early in the 9th Century. Yet, sta tistics show that about 85-90 per cent of the population is illiterate. Education has re cently become compulsory for primary studies. Have Special Dialect Moroccan written Arabic is similar to the rest of the Arab world. But spoken Mo roccan is a kind of special dialect of mixed Arabic-Span- Moroccans mainly are de vout (Sunni) Moslems. Dur ing four decades of French rule, Christian missionaries failed to convert them to Christianity. Thus commu nism has had insignificant success and the tiny party was Dan noa in isou. A typical Moroccan is Abdel-Hak Lahcen, a 54-year-old ministry of work em ployee, who lives with his wife, Aicha, and their four children in Spanish town in one of Rabat's poorer neigh borhoods. Mrs. Lahcen says the hard times in Morocco have turned her Into an experienced econ omist in order to manage to live on her husband's 500 dir hams (SI 10) monthly wage. She does her own shopping in the Casbah where prices are cheaper and the quality a little less fresh than in the new town. She also makes her two daughters' and most of her two sons' clothing. En tertainment is limited to a movie for the children twice a month. Picnic In Woods "Every Sunday we take them out on picnics to the woods around Rabat or a visit to my parents or Abdol Hak's folks," she said. Her daughters, Fatima, 10, and Latifa, 8, attend a girl's elementary school, and help their mother when they re turn in the late afternoon with house chores and tend ing the garden where some fruits and vegetables grown help reduce expenses. The sons, Ali, 6, and Mohamed, 4, j go to a boys' primary school i where Mohamed is in kinder garten, j House, Spacious The Lahcens' house is com posed of three bedrooms, a , large living room, fairly large entrance hall which is used i as a dining room, a large , kitchen and one bathroom. I The house is fairly old. built of red bricks plastered over and whitewashed. The kitch en has an old butane gas stove Lahcen bought second j hand from a French family j which loft Morocco after in dependence. I There is no central heating except in very few places in Morocco. Ileal during winter , comes from the kitchen and a large wood-burning stove j in the hall. But all the rooms j have thick Moroccan hand woven carpets. ' REGULAR MONDAY ROUTE IN RESIDENTIAL AREA Of The City Sanitary Service WILL BE PICKED UP SAT. AFTERNOON, AUG. 31 Instead Of MONDAY, SEPT. 2nd So That Our Employees May Enjoy Labor Day 1 AFRICA'S CALIFORNIA-Morocco often has state in this country. This newsmap of Mo been called the California of Africa because rocco shows its location. (UPI) of the many similarities it bears with the The Medical Roundup by ft n I Emeritus Consultant In Medlcinn Mayo rilnle Emeritus Prufessnr nf Aledictne Mayo Clinic (Register ajd Trlbun Syndicate. 11)63) AVOIDING HAY FEVER AND ASTHMA Whenever a beam of sun light comes through my dark ened room and I see the mil lions of dust part icles in the air, I am much impress ed. Ever since m y boyhood, when I work ed in a public 1 i brary, m y nose has been highly sen s i tive to book dust. All I have to do to get to sneezing violently is to pick up a book, or some type written material that has much dust on it. A high per centage of people, when skin tested, are found to be sensi tive to house dust. Even a house that has been well cleaned and dusted and vacu umed contains much dust. A person who is highly sen sitive to house dust can get much relief by installing in his home a central air condi tioning unit with a precipita tor attachment. These precipi tators interest me particular ly because, long ago, the basic idea for such apparatus came to my dear friend, Professor Cottrell, of the University of California. By running high tension electricity through an air conduit, he showed that one can cause the tiny parti cles of dust to run together into bigger particles that are heavy enough to fall out. Another good friend of mine. Dr. van Leeuwen, of Holland, many years ago dis covered that if he sent his pa tients with asthma into a hos pital, half of them immediate ly got relief. Also, if he sent them up into the mountains of Switzerland, half of them got relief. Studies soon showed that this relief came because, in a hospital room, where there are no rugs and few draperies, there is much less dust than there is in a home. Also, in the mountains the air is clean, and free from pol lens. An asthmatic person ought to get out of his home while it is being dusted. It helps to have the dusting done with a damp cloth. Some persons can get help by wearing a respira tor that filters out much dust. Very bad is the dust that gathers on the surface of a bed. A mother, on coming into her child's room some winter evening, may decicte that he needs an extra blan ket. When she throws this over the bed - whoosh! and so much dust flies up into the poor child's face that he or she may start wheezing in an attack of asthma. It would be so much better if. during the day, the mother were to cover the bed with a plastic, and at bed-time, very gently remove it. Some years ago on going into a Pullman can 1 saw tne woman across the aisle cover ing her pillows with plastic covers. She said she was an asthmatic who could avoid an attack by covering pillows which might be full of feath ers or some other (to her) ir ritating material. The asthmatic person should keep a record of her reactions to the various types of materials that she uses for sheets, spreads, and blankets. Cotton materials are usually safe, except for the stuffing of pillows. There, there may be some cotton-seed which can produce asthma. Rubber foam is safer. Feathers and Kapok can cause wheezing. Neighbors who suffer from hay fever might join together and pay someone to cut down all of the ragweed that grows in vacant lots in their neigh borhood. Experts say that or dinarily when the wind is not strong, the ragweed pollen does not travel very far. Today, many people with asthma get much help from a little instrument with which they can inject a few droplets of a strong drug into the back of the throat. One of the best of these drugs is Adrenalin. Many people try to avoid hay fever or asthma by mov ing to another part of the country. This sometimes helps wonderfully, but sometimes it doesn't. Often an expert al lergist can tell the person where he is likely to get re lief. I remember a young woman with a severe hay fever who, to get away from ragweed, fled to a western desert. There she got worse, because she was sensitive to sage brush - which was every where. Later, she obtained perfect relief in places like Duluth and San Francisco. In my library I have a rare old book, published some 100 years ago, with a map of the mountains of New England, showing where a sufferer from hay fever could be free! Often I have helped a per son find the cause of his asthma by teaching him to do a little home detective work. Thus, I remember the woman who got asthma' in certain houses, but not in others. It was then easy to find that the cause of her trouble was dust coming off of pressed board. Another patient of mine got all of her trouble from prim roses which she grew in her house. An eminent research man I know became sensitized to the fur of the rabbits with which he worked. A man who worked in a big chicken pro cessing plant had the misfor tune to gel sensitized to chicken feathers! If you're a sensitive, aller gic person, you'll want to read Dr. Alvarez' booklet "Asthma, Allergy, and Hay Fever," To obtain your copy send 25 cents and a stamped, self-addressed envelope with your request to Dr. Walter C. Al varez, Dept. MMT. Box 957, Des Moines, Iowa 50304. SMOKERS' JACKPOT Tokyo - (UPI) - Smokers of one of Japan's cheapest brands of cigarettes were un expectedly puffing the coun try's best tobacco today. 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