Historical Archives

Cardiac Failure in Cattle on Vitamin-E-free Rations as Revealed by Electrocardiograms

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.

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Historical Archives

Case of Dental Caries vs. the Sugar Interests

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.

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Historical Archives

Certain Nutritional Disorders of Laboratory Animals Due to Vitamin E Deficiency

By Alwin M. Pappenheimer, MD

Summary: A fascinating snapshot of some of the early animal research testing vitamin E deficiency. In this 1940 lecture, Dr. Alwin Pappenheimer details the grave and varied muscular and neural dystrophies that result in different species fed a diet lacking vitamin E. The young are particularly susceptible, he notes, often showing no symptoms for months after birth before being suddenly struck with neural or muscular dysfunction—the latter a condition he terms “nutritional muscular dystrophy.” In perhaps the most disturbing finding, a partial vitamin E deficiency in the diet of pregnant rats was shown to affect only the offspring—not the mothers, suggesting that what we today attribute to genetic inheritance is actually a problem of inherited malnutrition. In the words of Dr. Pappenheimer: “The fact that a partial deficiency of vitamin E in the mother may manifest itself only in the offspring seems to me to be one of the most significant lessons that one can draw from this work. May not similar things happen in human diseases and help explain the supposed hereditary or familial character of certain nervous and muscular disorders?” From Journal of the Mount Sinai Hospital, 1941. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 57.

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Historical Archives

Chemical Pesticides and Conservation Problems

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.

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Historical Archives

Chiropractic Reactions in the Light of Protomorphology

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. 

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Historical Archives

Chlorophyll for Healing

By Lois Mattox Miller

Summary: Reader’s Digest editor and medical writer Lois Mattox Miller details some of the amazing health-promoting properties of chlorophyll. “Distinguished medical specialists report that in 1200 recorded cases they have seen chlorophyll combat deep-lying infections, cleanse open wounds, relieve chronic sinus conditions, and banish common head colds. More remarkable, they say, is the way it accomplishes these things—speedily and effectively, with none of the harsh, irritating effects common to most antiseptics.” Miller discusses theories as to why chlorophyll is so effective, focusing on its similarity to hemoglobin in blood (the two molecules are essentially the same except iron is at the center of hemoglobin, whereas magnesium is at the center of chlorophyll) to explain its documented ability to stimulate the formation of red blood cells in animals. From Science News Letter, 1941. Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 84. 

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Historical Archives

Civilization and Cancer

Compiled by Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: One of the absurdly ignored facts of nutrition history is that preindustrialized tribal societies—eating their traditional, whole-food diets and no processed foods—experienced practically no cancer whatsoever. Here Dr. Royal Lee presents excerpts of communications by field doctors of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries reporting a virtual lack of cancer in various nonindustrialized populations, including the famed Hunza of western Asia, natives of Brazil and Ecuador, and myriad Native American tribes. Also included is a clip reflecting a telling, dirty secret of modern nutrition research: test animals to be induced with cancer are fed processed-food diets because it’s so much harder to bring the disease about in animals that are eating whole foods. While there are surely other factors involved in the development of cancer, one of the best defenses against the disease, as this article affirms, is a diet of whole, unprocessed, “uncivilized” foods. From Natural Food and Farming, 1960 and 1962. (Excerpts originally compiled by Dr. Royal Lee, 1959.) Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.

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Historical Archives

Clarence Darrow on Medical Control

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.

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Historical Archives

Clinical Nutrition (Food Versus Drugs)

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.

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Historical Archives

Clinical Studies of Magnesium Deficiency in Epilepsy

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.

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Historical Archives

Clinical Uses of Small Doses of Insulin

By Samuel M. Beale Jr., MD

Summary: Dr. Samuel Beale Jr. was a practicing physician in the town of Sandwich, Massachusetts, for nearly fifty years, from 1914 to 1964. Spurred by a discovery made early in his career, he applied low doses of insulin therapeutically to a breadth of conditions ranging from high blood pressure, head trauma, and liver disease to syphilis and cancer, all with remarkable success. In this 1937 lecture, Dr. Beale shares clinical observations of his insulin therapy, emphasizing the critical role played by nutrition in his treatments. “The use of insulin should be considered only in conjunction with the securing of a diet complete in all the food essentials, including fats, carbohydrates, proteins, minerals, vitamins, amino acids, and sterols,” he declares, adding that “predisposition to disease appear[s] to be secondary to endocrine deficiencies or imbalances, and these seem associated with dietary deficiencies…” Dr. Beale’s words echo the notion popular among some of nutrition’s greatest pioneers—including Drs. Royal Lee, Weston A. Price, and Sir Robert McCarrison—that endocrine damage resulting from malnutrition is the basic mechanism behind most disease in the modern world. (Dr. Beale attributed much of the nutritional success of his practice to Dr. Lee’s famous raw-food concentrates, as he tells Dr. Lee in this poignant 1962 letter.) From Transactions of the Forty-Third Annual Meeting of the American Laryngological, Rhinological, and Otological Society, Inc., 1937. Reprinted by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research.

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Historical Archives

Correctable Systemic Disorders Indicated by Presence of Salivary Calculus

By John E. Waters, DDS

Summary: An excellent nutritional piece positing dental plaque as a precursor to cancer. “Both the medical and dental professions in general consider pyorrhea alveolaris [gum inflammation and loosening of teeth] as a disease per se and treat it primarily from the local disease angle. That is wrong. Pyorrhea is but a single symptom of a systemic disease caused by glandular abnormalities. Local treatment but reduces the obvious symptoms; it does not affect the basic systemic disease. That which follows is based on observations during over forty years of general dental practice, and on over thirty years of special attention paid to certain aspects rarely if ever commented on in connection with dental calculus [tartar].” Published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, 1964.

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Historical Archives

Cost of Malnutrition

By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: In this creative and forward-thinking commentary on preventive healthcare, Dr. Royal Lee discusses the ways in which proper nutrition saves businesses money by fostering employee health. Getting enough vitamin A complex, for instance, helps maintain the integrity of mucous membranes and thus prevents infection and lost man hours. Sufficient vitamin B complex keeps the nerves and heart functioning properly, while adequate vitamin C complex promotes stamina by optimizing the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood. A proper amount of vitamin D complex prevents cramps, irritability, and bone-calcium loss, and so on. From Let’s Live magazine, 1958.

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Historical Archives

Current Thinking on Nutrition

By Jonathan Forman, MD

Summary: “What I want to talk about is the relation of nutrition to productive farming,” writes Dr. Jonathan Forman, a leading pioneer in environmental medicine during the 1940s. Here, Forman reviews research on nutritional deficiencies and degenerative diseases and traces their origins to poor farming practices throughout the entire food chain. “Poor land makes poor people, poor people make poor land, the people get poorer and the soil gets still poorer.” This is nutrition from the soil to the table. From the Ohio State Medical Journal, 1945.  Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research reprint 32.

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Fresh from the Press, Historical Archives

Deaf Smith’s Secret: An Explanation of the Deaf Smith Country

By A.W. Erickson

Summary: With tooth decay ravaging virtually every town and city in mid-twentieth-century America, the inhabitants of one region remained famously free of cavities. The oral health of Deaf Smith County, Texas, was so legendary, in fact, that rumor had it one could grow a new set of teeth just by moving there. Of course this was just fancy, but it bespoke Deaf Smith’s reputation as a place “where the best man develops,” with residents boasting not just superior dental health but overall health as well. In this captivating booklet, crop reporter A.W. Erickson reveals Deaf Smith’s secret to be the food grown on its extraordinarily mineral-rich soil and water. Erickson, detailing how unique climatic and geographical factors result in the continual deposition of myriad minerals across Deaf Smith’s farmland, affirms one of the great discoveries in early nutrition research and the reason why organic farming is so important today: human health is only as good as the land we grow our food in. Published by Field Notes Crop Reporting Service, 1945. (For a comprehensive look at the connection between human health and soil health, see Empty Harvest by Bernard Jensen and Mark R. Anderson.)

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Historical Archives

Developmental Malformation in Man and Other Animals: A Bibliography with Introduction

By Howard H. Hillemann, PhD

Summary: In the introduction to this bibliography of over 200 references, Dr. Howard Hillemann speaks of the evolution of humankind’s beliefs about disease and bodily defects, from early notions attributing such abnormalities to “divine visitation” to the idea, as of 1957, that such disorders are the result of a combination of genes and environment. Regarding the latter, Hilleman points out, “Proper nutrition is the most important single factor in the prevention of disease or in the recovery therefrom” and presents a list of references supporting this claim. While much of the content cited is no longer in print, merely perusing the categories and titles of the papers of the bibliography is “impressively educational in itself,” Hillemann writes. Published by the Lee Foundation for Nutritional Research, reprint 66C, circa 1957.

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