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The Pottenger Cat Studies Film Script
Script of the film The Pottenger Cat Studies, produced as a 16 mm motion picture by the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation in 1975. Scriptwriter: Rick Josiassen; narrator Alan Bergmann.
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Nutrition is now a national preoccupation. Questions about food have been asked and answered and asked again with new heights of assumed confidence punctuating each fresh bit of evidence. Additives, various preservatives, enriched this and enriched that. The bold, brilliant embattled young innovator against the reluctantly tough-minded but equally good-hearted scientist. The debate is upon us.
The field of nutrition has at last achieved front page glamor and it is time to take careful stock of the field in the hope of salvaging those elements which in the hands of astute practitioners can be especially useful tools. Whatever nutritional perspective might fit most comfortably, there is an enlightening series of historical studies which warrant the serious consideration of anyone interested in the field of nutrition.
There was a time during the 30s and 40s when a most fundamental and enthusiastic investigation was begun by a young doctor. Pottenger was his name. Francis M. Pottenger, Jr., pediatric allergist, innovative researcher, and the son of an internationally notable pioneer in the treatment of tuberculosis, as well as other chronic diseases of his day.
Here is the Pottenger Sanatorium to which tuberculosis patients from around the world travelled in the hope of rediscovering their health.
And there, another landmark. The laboratory and refrigeration tower where Pottenger conducted various research projects. Down among that grove of trees you can distinguish the roof line of the Pottenger Clinic.
Francis Pottenger at first followed in the footprints of his father. He and his staff continued to see tuberculosis patients as well as carry on in the research avenues that had shown some usefulness. But as chronicles of history so often express, the serendipities of science take unexpected twists. A phenomenon is observed quite by accident which boggles the perspective and redirects new levels of creative inquiry. So it was for Dr. Pottenger.
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 standardize 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 ft. wide, 7 ft. high and 12 ft. long. They were fed cooked meat scraps from the sanatorium which included internal organ meats and bones along 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 unexplainable 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 by leftover cooked meat scraps from the sanatorium. So raw meat scraps from a nearby meat packing plant replaced the cooked meat in the diets of certain cats. Within a very short period of time the operative mortality rate of that group dropped significantly. The raw meat fed animals began to survive the adrenalectomy extremely well and they continued on in 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 that cats with obvious deformities and disease were excluded.
Needless to say that when the people of 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, a small amount of raw milk and cod liver oil. Each day this basic diet accounted for ⅓ of the total dietary intake of the animals. The remaining ⅔ of the diet was the dimension of experimental manipulation. One group of cats received raw meat or cooked meat along with the basic diet. The other groups of cats were given raw milk, pasteurized milk, evaporated milk or sweetened condensed milk.
Each cat’s daily diet then consisted of ⅓ of the basic diet, plus ⅔ of the prepared food which was under 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 recorded numerous physiological changes in the experimental animals and their offspring. First you will observe the raw milk animals. They move about the pen with a great deal of agility and coordination. Notice the sheen to the fur and the normal sexual interest 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 a zoo. When thrown a short distance these animals show a slightly 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 animal shown thus far.
The sweetened condensed milk fed cats not only had their milk heat processed, but there was the addition of sugar. They are nervous animals. Again there is marked deterioration in coordination, and dental abnormalities. Notice particularly the abscesses and the purple tone to the membrane of the mouth. For a fuller comparison here is another example of normal development. Notice the firm gingiva, and normal coloring tones, the beautiful broad mouth, the full jaw with obvious power. This animal happens to be a male but the comparison is none the less valid.
Here is another illustrative comparison. The raw milk female gets in 20 or 30 licks for every one of the pasteurized milk female, then leaps away in disgust. These were all first-generation animals born of theoretically healthy parents 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 raw meat cat weighs 2,000 grams, while the second generation cooked meat animal only comes up to 1,600 grams.
Compare the black kitten with this 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 calcium content of the bones throughout the body ranged between 12 and 17 percent by weight. The skulls of adult cats with a long 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. The zygomatic arch is not completed, the nasal development is somewhat irregular and the calcium content has fallen to 10 percent.
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 had developed in a peculiar fashion and the calcium content of the bones had fallen to a low 3 percent by weight.
Activity level is another index of interest. In this pen there is an obvious difference in activity level between the raw meat animals and the cooked meat animals. One of these kittens actually had a broken back resulting from 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 reported in research literature. Again there is marked dental deterioration, abscesses, poor coloring and gingival irritation.
Pronounced exhaustion was a typical observation among the third generation of cooked meat kittens, as well as impaired coordination. This third-generation cooked meat kitten had over 24 fractures resulting from a failure in development. And finally this little third-generation cooked meat kitten was unable to release its claws from the hardware cloth, and would have probably died had not the assistant taken it down.
At this juncture of 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 those that had attempted to mate could only produce stillborn litters. On the other hand the raw meat animals continued to reproduce healthy offspring generation after generation.
The notion that specific nutritional factors in foods may be destroyed by heat processing 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 four generations of a raw food diet before the animals regained their native structure and original level of well-being.
An interesting side light 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 hearty. Plants 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 into 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 high degree because he is omnivorous. Nevertheless, the changes discovered in the Pottenger cats are comparable to many like changes in human beings.
The historical work of Dr. W. A. Price corroborates the Pottenger study by charting 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 passed down the generations, a sobering challenge stands before us.
Throughout this study Pottenger stressed the high degree of dietary control 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 in a rather fine manner and carried on in the genteel tradition of her feline ancestry.
Editor’s note: This film was reissued in 2006 as a DVD with a new introduction by David Getoff.
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