"While working on his father's theory that tuberculosis was linked to adrenal gland deficiencies, he took on the task of standardizing adrenal extracts by using adrenalectomized cats. These were the steps required to standardized the biological extracts for later use with his tuberculosis patients. The cats chosen for the study were apparently in perfect health. They were kept in open-air pens with a yard 4 feet wide, 7 feet high and 12 feet long. They were fed cooked meat scraps from the sanitarium which included internal organ meat and bones with some additional raw milk and cod liver oil. According to all known standards this diet provided an optimal amount of nutrients.
The cats seemed healthy, the adrenalectomy technique had been proven appropriate, nevertheless the study suffered from an unexplainably high mortality rate. Then came that uncalculated twist of events. For some reason many more cats were provided for the study than could ever have been fed using leftover cooked meat scraps from the sanitarium. So raw meat scraps from a nearby meat packing plant replaced the cook meat in the diets of certain cats. Within a very short period of time, the operative mortality of that group dropped significantly. The raw meat fed animals began to survive the adrenaletomy extremely well and they continued on to a superior quality of health.
Pottenger had unexpectedly glimpsed a new facet of fundamental nutrition, and he was compelled to respond with a series of studies that would span the next 10 years of his medical career. To begin the study, a population of animals was selected which Pottenger aptly dubbed run of the pen cats. He was not interested in physical perfection, his major concern was that his cats represent a normal sampling of animals with the exception of cats with obvious deformities and disease were excluded. Needless to say, when people from the nearby community heard of the study, more cats were mysteriously abandoned on the Pottenger doorstep than could ever be used in the experiment.
Pottenger was intrigued by what he termed "heat-labile factors", or put as an experimental question: "Does the cooking process somehow render food nutritionally deficient, causing eventual physiological degeneration?".
A Basic Diet was designed consisting of raw meat, viscera, bones, raw milk & cod liver oil. Each day this Basic Diet accounted for one-third of the total dietary intake of the animals. The remaining two-thirds of the diet was the dimension of Experimental manipulation. One group of cats received raw meat or cooked meat, along with a basic diet. The other group of cats were given raw milk, pasteurized milk, evaporated milk, or sweetened condensed milk. Each cat's daily diet consisted one-third of the basic diet, plus two-thirds of the prepared food which was on the study, and once assigned to a specific group, the animal's diet was held constant. Although there were two different studies, one focusing on milk, and the other on meat. The results of both studies were nearly identical.
Over the next 10 year period, Pottenger observed and noted numerous physiological changes in the experimental animals and their offspring. First he will observe the raw milk animals. They move about the pen with a great deal of agility and co-ordination. Notice the sheen to the fur, and the normal sexual interested displayed toward the male in the next pen. As would be expected they land on their feet when thrown in the air. The pasteurized milk fed cats shown here move about the pen in a manner quite different from the raw milk cats. The cat in the foreground actually developed arthritis during the experiment. They are lethargic much like animals in the zoo. When thrown a short distance these animals show a slight impaired sense of coordination.
Dental deterioration was also common. Note the abscesses above the molars, the reddish cast to the gums, and the soft gingiva. With evaporated milk there was even greater deterioration. When the study was begun, this cat was better developed than any other animal shown thus far. The sweetened condensed milk fed cats not only had their milk heat processed, but their was the addition of sugar. They were nervous animals. Again there is marked deterioration and coordination, and dental abnormalities. Notice particularly the abscesses and the purple tone to the membrane of the mouth.
For a further comparison here is an example of normal development. Notice the firm gingiva, the normal coloring tones, the beautiful broad mouth, the full jaw with obvious power. This animal happens to be a male, but the comparison is nonetheless valid. Here is another illustrative comparison. The raw milk female gets in 20 of 30 licks for every one of the pasteurized milk female, then leaps away in disgust.
These were all first generation parents, born from theoretically healthy animals, and who themselves were healthy at the beginning of the study. Disturbing as these observations might be, the impaired balance, the lack of energy, the dental deterioration, some of the most significant findings emerged as Pottenger extended his study down to the second and third generations. Almost immediately Pottenger noticed that animals fed the raw meat diet for two generations appeared larger than the same generation of cooked meat cats. At 16 weeks, this second generation of raw meat cat weight 2000g, while the second generation cooked meat animals comes up to 1600g.
Compare the black kitten with the raw meat kitten. The sheen, the sparkle of the eyes, the well developed face. Nutritional studies often look at skeletal development as a rather vital index of dietary sufficiency. This is a raw meat animal with a full round face. A later examination of the skull showed a firmly developed zygomatic arch, the frontal sinuses were complete, and the calcium content of the bones throughout the body ranged from 12 to 17% by weight. The skulls of adult cats with an ancestry of raw food diets are surprisingly constant. Here we find the development of a second generation cooked meat animal. The head has begun to flatten, and is actually smaller than the comparable raw meat cat. The skull shows the major reasons for this change. Zygomatic arch is not completed, the nasal development is somewhat irregular, and the calcium content has fallen to 10%. Third generation cooked meat animals show the most remarkable skeletal change. The skull is considerably smaller, it is flat with pointed features, the skull shows a poorly developed zygomatic arch, the bones are paper thin and soft like sponge rubber. The frontal sinuses have developed into a peculiar fashion, and the calcium content of the bones have fallen to 3% by weight.
Activity level is another index of interest. In this pen there is an obvious difference between the raw meat animals and the cooked meat animals. One of these cooked meat kittens actually had a broken back which resulted in a failure in development. Moving into the third generation of experimental animals, the degeneration was even more pronounced. The smaller animal is a cooked meat kitten, and is actually the oldest of the three, the kitten on the left is a second generation raw meat cat, and the one on the right is a second generation cooked meat cat. Here is a second generation cooked meat mother with her third generation offspring. She has a male body configuration. Her offspring developed nasal and ocular allergies. From the same litter came an asthmatic kitten, reportedly the first to be reported in the research literature. Again, there is marked dental deterioration, abscesses, poor coloring and gingiva irritation.
Pronounced exhaustion was a typical observation among the third generation of cooked meat kittens. As well as impaired co-ordination. This third generation cooked meat kitten had over 24 fractures, resulting from a failure in development. And finally, this third generation cooked meat kitten was unable to release its claws from the hardware cloth, and probably would have died had the assistant not taken it down.
At this junction in the study a most interesting development emerged. The cooked meat cats were unable to successfully reproduce after the third generation. Most were void of sexual interest, and most that attempted to mate could only produce still-born litters. On the other hand, the raw meat animals continued to reproduce healthy offspring generation after generation.
The notion that specific nutritional factors in food may be destroyed by heat processes is obviously not far fetched.
Physiological deterioration down the generations is quite graphic, and according to Pottenger, the process was found to be reversible only with great difficulty. He did demonstrate that the animals could make considerable gains towards physiological normalcy, but it took 4 generations of a raw food diet before the animals regained their native structure and original level of well-being.
An interesting sidelight came 6 months after the experiment's conclusion. When volunteer weeds emerged in the fallow pens. In the raw milk pens, the plants flourished. In the pasteurized milk pens the growth was somewhat less hardy. Pens in the evaporated milk pens struggled, and the sweetened condensed milk pen speaks for itself. At a later date, navy beans were planted in the respective pens with parallel results.
What are we to make of these numerous observations? I suppose one could easily slip to pessimism when translating these findings into terms of human deficiency. However there are certain redeeming features that should be examined. From the beginning, the dietary intake of each animal was carefully controlled. Man is rarely restricted to such a degree because he is omnivorous. Nevertheless, the changes discovered in the Pottenger's Cats are comparable to many light changes in human beings. The historical work of Dr. Western A. Price corroborates the Pottenger's study by charging the graphic degeneration of primitive tribesmen as they moved from their traditions and dietary customs to the civilized world.
And if it is true with human beings as it is with cats, that nutritionally caused deterioration is past down the generations, a sobering challenge stands before us.
Throughout this study Pottenger stressed the high degree he imposed on his laboratory animals. This is quite an accurate accounting of the facts, with the exception of the one cooked meat cat, that somehow got away. Although she did undergo obvious degeneration during her captivity, later she was able to experience a partial physiological recovery while living in the wild. And any fitting epilogue would point out that she compensated with a rather fine manner, and carried on in the gentile tradition of her feline ancestry.
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Transcript written by me.
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