By H.E. Kirschner, MD
Summary: An American medical doctor describes the therapeutic uses and preparations of comfrey (Symphytum officinale), including those based on his own personal experience. From Let’s Live magazine, 1958. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research special reprint 12-58.
By Jonathan Forman, MD
Summary: Dr. Jonathan Forman was an esteemed medical doctor who pioneered the field of environmental medicine and launched and edited the famous cutting-edge journal Clinical Physiology. From 1968 to the present, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine has presented the prestigious Jonathan Forman Award annually to doctors and researchers who make outstanding contributions to environmental medicine. In this biography of Dr. Royal Lee, Dr. Forman writes, “in the field of ‘health through nutrition’, [Dr. Lee] stands out as the Empire State Building on the New York skyline.” High praise indeed. Published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1964.
By Lewis B. Barnett, MD
Summary: In this article from the pioneering mid-twentieth-century journal Clinical Physiology, Dr. Lewis Barnett summarizes his laboratory and case-study findings correlating magnesium deficiency and epilepsy. Dr. Lewis spent many years studying this essential mineral and its profound relationship to the utilization of calcium. From Clinical Physiology, 1959. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 114.
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: In this revealing article from 1948, Dr. Royal Lee calls out organized medicine for deceitfully thwarting the field of clinical nutrition. “This pernicious and corrupt misuse of the facilities of medical education has been [totally] effective in creating the idea that nutritional therapy is futile and leans toward quackery.” Lee goes on to show how medicine became focused solely on therapies involving pharmaceutical drugs, and that it ruthlessly marginalized drugless healing professions through laws preventing the dissemination of information and knowledge. Published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1948.
By Clarence Darrow
Summary: Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) was a famous American lawyer known for his wit, his oratory skill, and his defense of liberty and the common man. His most famous trial was the “Monkey Trial” of 1925, in which he defended John T. Scopes and opposed William Jennings Bryan. In this transcript of a radio address, Darrow defends chiropractic and the rights of the public to pursue the healthcare of their choice, rather than be limited to the monopoly of medical practice. “I would have no quarrel with the medical profession if they would leave me alone,” he says. “But I do object to being forced to patronize them.” He adds, “I stand for the right of everybody to regulate his own life for himself, and if he wants to live and die without the aid of the medical profession, he should have the right to do it, and if one should not have that right, it is pretty hard to tell what right we should have.” Timeless words for anyone who prizes liberty and opposes all forms of tyranny. From ABC News, 1928.
By Royal Lee and William A. Hanson
Summary: The complete book on the subject of the Protomorphogen. In this seminal work, Dr. Royal Lee connects the dots between the endocrine, nutritional, and cellular control mechanisms of the living human cell as well as how growth and repair in the body are regulated. This is the basis for Dr. Lee’s theories of autoimmune disorders, in which he detailed the immune system’s ability and tendency, under conditions such as nutrient deficiency, to target the body’s own tissue. Lee’s visionary tome was released decades before any understanding of autoimmune disorder was acknowledged or accepted by medicine or any other field of healing. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1947.
View PDF: Protomorphology: The Principles of Cell Auto-Regulation
By Dr. George Goodheart
Summary: In this 1951 article, Dr. George Goodheart, founder of applied kinesiology (AK), discusses the Protomorphogen Theory of Dr. Royal Lee in relation to the mechanisms of chiropractic treatment. This is one of Dr. George Goodheart’s earliest professionally published articles. From The Journal of the National Chiropractic Association, 1951. Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.
By M.M. Hargraves, MD
Summary: In this thoughtful speech before the National Wildlife Federation, a Mayo Clinic physician presents his opinion on the causal effects of farming chemicals on human health. Citing numerous cases studies from twenty-five years of clinical practice, Dr. Hargraves presents a strong correlation of pesticide exposure with specific illnesses. While Hargraves concedes that “no one is capable of speaking with authority about exact causal relationships of pesticides and human health,” he maintains that “the vast majority of patients suffering from the blood…and lymphoid diseases have a significant history of exposure to the various hydrocarbons which in turn includes most of the pesticides of today.” Original source unknown, 1959. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 105.
By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: With grains getting a bad rap in some nutrition circles these days, we tend to forget that historically many cultures thrived on diets rich in cereals. The rye eaters of the Swiss Alps, the oat lovers of the Scottish isles, the wheat-heavy Hunza of northern India—all were studied and touted by investigators of the early 1900s for their extraordinary hardiness and freedom from disease. (Of course, their grains were whole, genetically unaltered, grown in healthy soil, and freshly milled before cooking, but that’s another story.) In this 1953 missive, Dr. Royal Lee discusses the nutritional virtues of some of our common grains, commending wheat for its high phosphorus content, rice for the superior biological value of its protein, and oats and rye for their muscle-building effect. He even explains why barley tea—once a household remedy for everything from teething to insomnia—might help keep you free from infectious disease. For anyone questioning the nutritional value of whole grains, Dr. Lee’s words will come as a thought-provoking surprise. Published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1953.
By Fred D. Miller, DDS
Summary: A pioneering holistic dentist uses the case history of two patients to illustrate the clear relationship between nutrition in the body and dental decay in the mouth. Photos included. From the journal TIC, 1948 and 1949. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 49.
By Allison G. James, DDS
Summary: The overwhelming case that consumption of refined carbohydrates is the cause of tooth decay is presented by dentist and author Allison James. Even back in 1949, as this article from Journal of the Southern California State Dental Association illustrates, this theory was opposed institutionally by both commercial sugar interests and the profession of dentistry at large. Instead, conventional dentistry continued—and continues today—to blindly follow its eternal mantra: Drill ’em and fill ’em. Never mind why the caries are there in the first place! From Journal of the Southern California State Dental Association, 1949. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 42.
By T.W. Gullikson and C.E. Calverley
Summary: In 1922 researchers at the University of California at Berkeley showed that rats deprived of an unidentified substance found in leafy greens and wheat germ failed to reproduce. The fat-soluble nutrient was named vitamin E, and soon research groups around the world were studying the effects of its deficiency in species ranging from turkeys to the tree-kangaroo. In this 1946 report, researchers at the Minnesota Agricultural Station reveal the surprising results of a ten-year investigation into the effects of vitamin E deficiency on the reproductive health of cows. While the animals were able to reproduce, many of them suffered another, unforeseen calamity: sudden, fatal heart failure. Meanwhile, clinicians were reporting a variety of successful applications of vitamin E therapy in humans, as epitomized by the famous Shute brothers, two Canadian doctors who documented the effective use of vitamin E in nearly ten thousand heart patients—results discredited and ignored by the medical community to this day. From Science, 1946. Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.
By the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research
Summary: Some talking points on the role of various nutrients in the prevention and treatment of cancer, including vitamins A and C, iodine, chlorophyll, and specific factors in the vitamin B complex such as choline, inositol, and betaine. Complete with references. Published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1949.
Author unknown
Summary: In this 1998 press release from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, hematologist Dr. Chi Dang discusses his famous study demonstrating that cancerous cells self-destruct when deprived of their main fuel, the sugar glucose. While Dr. Dang’s report was big news to the conventional medical world, it would have come as no surprise to many nutrition researchers of the mid-twentieth century, particularly to cancer expert Dr. Daniel Quigley of the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, who once proclaimed that no cancer patient he had ever treated “showed any material improvement unless the diet was so arranged that sugar [glucose] disappeared from the urine.” Sadly, Dr. Dang, a medical researcher, does not appear to even consider the obvious implication of both his and Dr. Quigley’s work—that cancer might be effectively treated by the simple nutritional therapy of eliminating refined carbohydrates from the diet—but instead proffers the development of a pharmaceutical drug as a solution to “the glucose problem.” In speculating about such a drug, Dr. Dang unfortunately repeats a misconception that runs rampant in both conventional and alternative healthcare—that the human brain can use only glucose as fuel. Though science has known this claim to be untrue since the 1960s (fat derivatives can be used just as well if not better), it continues to be purported today by even the most educated practitioners. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 1998.
By Malcolm Lawrence
Summary: This report exposing the corruption and lack of integrity in the cancer-research industry was published under a nom-de-plume (pen name) to protect the author’s status as a medical researcher within the cancer-research establishment. (See the editor’s note preceding the article regarding this.) It describes how natural therapies were never given a chance to demonstrate efficacy, while expensive and toxic chemotherapeutic agents glided right through the research community. Notably, the story of Dr. Andrew Ivy of the University of Illinois and his Krebiozen treatment is told in this historically important document. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research special reprint 5-62, 1962. Original source unknown.
By Patrick Quillin, PhD
Summary: “It puzzles me why the simple concept ‘sugar feeds cancer’ can be so dramatically overlooked as part of a comprehensive cancer treatment plan,” writes Dr. Patrick Quillin in this stirring article from the April 2000 issue of Nutrition Science News. Quillin, recounting the discovery by Nobel laureate Dr. Otto Warburg that cancer cells feed exclusively on glucose, discusses his own experience in working with over 500 cancer patients as the director of nutrition for the Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Limiting sugar consumption and keeping one’s blood-sugar level within a narrow range, he says, “can be one of the most crucial components of a cancer recovery program.” That barely any of the four million cancer patients in America receive this information as part of their treatment is nothing short of scandalous. From Nutrition Science News, 2000.
By Dr. William A. Albrecht
Summary: A comprehensive discussion of the amazing role of calcium in the soil and its effect on crops and animals, written by one of the greatest soil scientists of all time. Dr. Albrecht, who chaired the soils department at the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, is known in the organic farming movement as the “father of soil fertility research.” Born in 1888, he published his first article on soil fertility in 1918 and would publish research papers continually until his death in 1974. Albrecht was a friend of Dr. Royal Lee, and the Lee Foundation published several of his papers, which are available in this archive. From The Land magazine, 1943. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 8.
By Marion B. Richards, DSc
Summary: While today synthetic supplements are generally considered beneficial or at worst harmless, early investigations into their therapeutic application painted a far different and disturbing picture. In this 1945 report from the British Medical Journal, pioneering biochemist Dr. Marion Richards reports on her investigations into the effects of synthetic vitamin B1 (known as aneurine in England at the time and as thiamine today). Dr. Richards found that female rats fed a supplement of synthetic B1 developed a subsequent deficiency of vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) so grave that the animals’ offspring died from lack of it during weaning. These results echoed other studies of synthetic B vitamin therapy, she notes, in which “excessive dosing with one particular factor of the B complex” appeared to lead to “secondary deficiencies” of other vitamins in the complex. In one of the most alarming of these experiments, dogs fed a diet enriched with synthetic B vitamins died faster than dogs fed an unenriched diet. Also worth noting in the study discussed here is that supplementation with additional calcium in the form of chalk only worsened the animals’ resulting vitamin B6 deficiency. Such unintended consequences speak to why “naturalist” researchers of the time warned of the dangers of widespread supplementation with synthetic micronutrients, pointing out that only whole foods of time-tested nutritional value can be relied on to provide vitamins and minerals in the forms and ratios required for human health. From British Medical Journal, 1945. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 10.
By N. Philip Norman, MD
Summary: A classic, definitive work on ulcerative colitis. Dr. Royal Lee described this remarkable book, which his foundation published in its entirety in 1950, as “worth its weight in gold.” Groundbreaking in its understanding of the lesions of malnutrition, the book makes a cogent case that ulcerative colitis is closely related to scurvy, the result of a deficiency of the vitamin C complex, along with additional nutrient deficiencies and other ill effects of a processed-food diet. 1950.
By E.K. Roosevelt
Summary: From the 1950s through the early 1980s, Edith Kermit Roosevelt wrote about issues of health and fitness in her popular syndicated column “Between the Lines.” In this article—the title of which pretty much sets the tone—she exposes the dangerous adulteration of America’s food with agrichemicals through facts, figures, and the outrage of someone aware of what was actually going on. Long before Rachel Carlon’s Silent Spring hit the stands, the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research was publishing fact-filled pieces like these warning the medical profession and the public of the wholesale poisoning of the country’s food supply. Original source unknown. Reprint 102, circa 1957.
