Francis Pottenger MD, Raw
Milk and “The Hazards of a Health Fetish”
“Pasteurized
homogenized milk? Might as well drink water with
chalk in it.”
- Dan Logue, Dairy Farmer, Woodbury, Connecticut
for over 50 years
“People
need this milk. They want it real bad. You should
hear the stories they tell me.”
- Anonymous raw dairy farmer in a state that outlaws
all sales of raw milk
The impact of quoted work is often
influenced by the reputation of the person quoted.
But what makes a reputation, in particular that
of a person who died many years ago? Certainly
in part the accuracy and importance of the written
work left behind. But when a person’s life
and work is ignored by most of society, much less
maligned by prestigious segments, reputation suffers.
What yardstick may we use then to evaluate the
import of the life? We may be left with only our
judgment of the work itself. If the work is complex
and perhaps not readily available, as is Dr. Pottenger’s,
making that judgment may be difficult.
Thomas Hotchkiss knew Francis M.
Pottenger from the time Thomas was eleven years
old in 1912. His “Personal Memoir”
of Francis, written after the doctor’s death
in 1967, is the source for many of the following
details about Pottenger’s life.[xxxi]
Genius and Service
Two years before his death, Francis
received the Distinguished Alumnus Award at Otterbein
College in Ohio. In presenting the citation, the
Chairman of the Board of Trustees praised Francis’s
distinguished career in medicine and public service.
Service indeed. By the time he received
that award, Francis M. Pottenger, MD, had published
over fifty peer-reviewed articles in the scientific
literature, mainly in the fields of medicine,
chronic disease and nutrition. He had served as
president of the Los Angeles County Medical Association,
the American Therapeutic Society and the American
Academy of Applied Nutrition. “Francis was
among the first in his profession to recognize
the hazard to health caused by air pollution in
Los Angeles County,” Hotchkiss wrote. “He
worked indefatigably over a period of many years
to mitigate its deleterious effects upon human
health. His efforts were widely recognized and
as a result he became a member of the Los Angeles
County Air Pollution Control District’s
Scientific Committee on Air Pollution.”
Pottenger received a rather unusual
accolade for a medical doctor. In 1951, the Texas
State Dental Association honored him with an award
for the Advancement of the Science of Dentistry
in Texas. He had written a number of brilliant
articles on the effect of raw versus cooked foods,
including pasteurized milk, on the dental and
facial structures of animals and human beings.
The articles had a powerful and lasting impact
on the many American physicians and dentists who
were actively interested in the effect of nutrition
on human health and disease.
In 1940, Francis founded the Francis
M. Pottenger, Jr. Hospital at Monrovia, California
for the treatment of asthma and other nontubercular
diseases of the respiratory system. And beginning
in 1945, he was Assistant Clinical Professor of
Experimental Medicine at the University of Southern
California.
Dr. Pottenger also served as a volunteer
as Medical Service Chief for the Civil Defense
Area surrounding his home during World War II.
Japanese invasion of the West Coast of America
was considered a real threat in the dark days
just after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. The
project to set up the first portable hospital
in Los Angeles County under simulated disaster
conditions was directed by Pottenger.
In 1940 he began what became known
as the Pottenger Cat Study, the work that brought
him fame. There’s no money these days in
making famous a man who proves the value of raw
foods; in the last forty years or so, Pottenger’s
fame in the conventional medical and nutritional
establishment has faded as surely as the stocks
of processed food companies have risen. Yet he
remains an icon to those who understand his work
and its importance, particularly in relationship
to the work of Weston Price. Let’s look
now at what Pottenger had to say in one of his
many professional papers, and an example of how
his work has not only been misunderstood, but
indeed sometimes deliberately misrepresented.
A Fetish
For many years, advocates for raw milk have pointed
to Pottenger’s research as perhaps the most
important proof of raw milk’s benefits.
Those who would outlaw all sales of raw milk have
meanwhile disparaged and distorted his work. An
example of the latter is found in an article titled
“Unpasteurized Milk-The Hazards of a Health
Fetish” that appeared in the Journal
of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
on October 19, 1984.[xxxii]
The choice of the word fetish is interesting;
one meaning of the word is “a thing evoking
irrational devotion or respect.” Let us
see whether Pottenger’s respect for unpasteurized
milk is indeed irrational.
The JAMA
authors refer to a 1946 Pottenger article from
the American
Journal of Orthodontics and Oral Surgery,
“The Effect of Heat-Processed and Metabolized
Vitamin D Milk on the Dentofacial Structures of
Experimental Animals.” [xxxiii]
The authors of the “Health Fetish”
article state:
“Numerous studies of the relative nutritional
merits of raw and pasteurized milk have been conducted
in animals and humans, and no differences were
detectable. One animal study deserves particular
attention because a misrepresentation of the results
has become prominent in the raw milk folklore.
In 1946, Pottenger published a report about his
observations on cats fed varying combinations
of raw and heat-treated milk and raw and cooked
meat. In his first and largest series of experiments,
Pottenger observed many diseases in cats fed raw
milk and cooked meat. Raw milk advocates have
erroneously cited this article as having reported
that disease occurred in cats fed pasteurized
milk. Smaller experiments in the same article
showed that a diet of one-third raw meat and two-thirds
milk (pasteurized or not) did not provide adequate
nutrition for the cats.”
Based on this quote, one might reasonably think
that perhaps the diseases Pottenger observed in
the first series of experiments were caused by
raw milk, and that the smaller experiments showed
that raw milk was not superior nutritionally to
pasteurized milk. Publication in so prestigious
a journal by two medical doctors and two veterinarians
lends further weight to the pronouncements.
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