Pottenger's Cats - A Study in Nutrition
by Francis M. Pottenger, Jr., MD
of
Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation
Between the years of 1932 and 1942, Dr. Francis
Marion Pottenger, Jr. conducted a feeding experiment
to determine the effects of heat-processed food on
cats. His ten-year cat study was prompted by the
high rate of mortality he was experiencing among his
laboratory cats undergoing adrenalectomies for use
in standardizing the hormone content of the adrenal
extract he was making. Because there were no
existent chemical procedures for standardizing
biological extracts, manufacturers of such extracts
necessarily had to use animals to determine their
potency. As cats die without their adrenal glands,
the dose of extract required to support their lives
calibrated the level of the extract's potency.
In his effort to maximize the preoperative health of
his laboratory animals, Francis fed them a diet of
market grade raw milk, cod liver oil and cooked meat
scraps from the sanitarium. These scraps included
the liver, tripe, sweetbreads, brains, heart and
muscle. This diet was considered to be rich in all
the important nutritive substances by the experts of
the day, and the surgical technique used for the
adrenalectomies was the most exacting known.
Therefore, Francis was perplexed as to why his cats
were poor operative risks. In seeking an
explanation, he began noticing that the cats showed
signs of deficiency. All showed a decrease in their
reproductive capacity and many of the kittens born
in the laboratory had skeletal deformities and organ
malfunctions.
As his neighbors in Monrovia kept donating an
increasing number of cats to his laboratory, the
demand for cooked meat scraps exceeded supply and he
placed an order at the local meat packing plant for
raw meat scraps, again including the viscera, muscle
and bone. These raw meat scraps were fed to a
segregated group of cats each day and within a few
months this group appeared in better health than the
animals being fed cooked meat scraps. Their kittens
appeared more vigorous, and most interestingly,
their operative mortality decreased markedly.
The contrast in the apparent health of the cats fed
raw meat and those fed cooked meat was so startling,
it prompted Francis to undertake a controlled
experiment. What he had observed by chance, he
wanted to repeat by design. He wanted to find
answers to such questions as: Why did the cats
eating raw meat survive their operations more
readily than those eating cooked meat? Why did the
kittens of the raw meat fed cats appear more
vigorous? Why did a diet based on cooked meat scraps
apparently fail to provide the necessary nutritional
elements for good health? He felt the findings of a
controlled feeding experiment might illumine new
facts about optimal human nutrition.
The Cat Study of Francis M. Pottenger, Jr., MD is
unique. There is no similar experiment in the
medical literature. The pathological and chemical
findings were supervised by Francis in consultation
with Alvin G. Foord, M.D., professor of pathology at
the University of Southern California and
pathologist at the Huntington Memorial Hospital in
Pasadena. Accordingly, the studies met the most
rigorous scientific standards of the day and their
protocol was observed consistently.
Since The Cat Study is unique, its findings are
frequently quoted and misquoted in order to justify
the ideas of others. For example, one author of a
popular selling book states that 200 cats died of
arthritis; this indeed did not happen. Another
author states that the cats were fed sprouts and
survived in full health for four continuous
generations. Again, no such experiment took place,
and yet this misinformation has been traced over a
dozen or more different articles and books.
A frequent criticism of The Pottenger Cat Study is
that it was not properly controlled. Here it is
necessary to ask, "By what standards?" Every one of
the studies followed strictly defined protocol. All
variables in the stock of the animals were reported
and explained. Because some of the test procedures
may seem crude forty years later, this in no way
invalidates the facts that the procedures were
meticulously controlled and that the results of the
experiments were reported as observed.
Another criticism is that the cats were kept in an
artificial environment unrelated to real living
conditions. Such a criticism overlooks the
experimental necessity of maintaining a controlled
environment to provide valid findings. It also
overlooks the evidence that given specific living
conditions, specific changes repeatedly occurred in
the health of the cats under observation.
Another frequent criticism is that the experimental
work done on cat nutrition has no appropriate
application to human nutrition. Francis M. Pottenger,
Jr., MD never stated that a one-to-one comparison
could be made between his findings in cat nutrition
and his findings in human nutrition. He did say:
"While no attempt will be made to correlate the
changes in the animals studied with malformations
found in humans, the similarity is so obvious that
parallel pictures will suggest themselves."
All too often, self-appointed authorities will state
categorically that they do not believe other's
observations and so seek to close the door on any
further inquiry into these observations. They
declare, "Because I do not believe the facts as
presented, they are not so." Far better for science
if responsible individuals maintain an attitude of
open inquiry and test the observations of others
before forming rigid opinions. In the case of The
Cat Study, human welfare might well be served if
concerned researchers made every effort to discover
if valid correlation's can be made between cat
nutrition and human nutrition. It must be remembered
that cats and humans both are mammalian biological
systems.
It would be of great value to the field of nutrition
to repeat The Cat Study within the parameters of
present day technology and with the use of present
day antibiotics. Most of the cats on deficient diets
died from infections of the kidneys, lungs and
bones. If these infections were eliminated as a
cause of death by antibiotics, it would allow the
cats to reveal their ultimate degenerative fates. As
an extension to this experiment, it would be of
interest to study the effects of vitamin and mineral
supplementation in the diet of cooked food fed
animals.
It is our effort in this monograph to present the
observations made by Francis M. Pottenger, Jr., MD
on the effects of deficient and optimum nutrition in
cats and human beings as recorded in his articles
and clinical records written between the years of
1932 and 1956. Nothing has been added or subtracted
from his findings, and for the most part, the words
describing his work are his own. Though some of the
scientific interpretations have not withstood the
test of time, the observations are valid. A careful
and selective interpretation by an inquiring mind
will readily differentiate the two.This article is copyright ©
The Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation 1997 - 2007
Thank you to Joan Grinzi, RN, Executive Director
of The Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation for
permission to reproduce this article.
|
