Francis Marion Pottenger, Jr., MD
Francis Marion Pottenger, Sr., a native of Ohio, moved to Monrovia, California
in 1895 with his wife, who was suffering from tuberculosis. He entered into the
practice of medicine, but when his wife's health failed to improve, he took her
back to Ohio where she died in November of 1898. Returning to Monrovia, he and
his two brothers, Milton and Joseph, opened the Pottenger Sanatorium and Clinic
for Diseases of the Chest with emphasis on the treatment of tuberculosis in 1903.
Convinced that good nutrition formed the basis for the successful treatment of
disease, Francis senior placed a priority on the quality of food he served at the
sanatorium. Most of the food was grown on the premises, and to insure the best
quality milk and milk products, he worked with the United States Department of
Agriculture to form the first government accredited (free of tuberculosis)
Holstein herd in California. The sanatorium soon became recognized internationally
for its successful treatment of tuberculosis and maintained an impeccable
reputation until it closed in 1956. Francis wrote well over 200 books and articles
on the treatment of chest diseases, many of which were used in medical schools
throughout the country.
Francis senior married his second wife, Adelaide Gertrude Babbit (Kitty), on August 29, 1900. Kitty was a native of Keysville, New York, and at the time of their courtship was the vice principal and the teacher of Latin and Greek in the Monrovia High School. The Babbit family was known for its inventors. One Babbit ancestor invented Babbit metal, an alloy used in the production of bearings. The metal was developed for the New Haven Railroad in order to circumvent the British monopoly on replacement parts for their locomotives. Another Babbit invention was Babbo, a popular household cleaning agent and the predecessor of today's Ajax.
Three children were born of the union between Francis and Kitty: Francis Marion, Jr., on May 29, 1901; Robert Thomas in 1904; and Adelaide Marie in 1907. The family home, called The Oaks, was built by W. N. Monroe, the founder of Monrovia. The Oaks was also a working farm and provided both farming experience for the children and fresh food for the family table.
Francis Marion Pottenger, Jr., began his schooling at the Wild Rose Elementary School in Monrovia. Here he made many permanent friends. One was Thomas Myron Hotchkiss, who wrote a biography of Francis in which he describes Francis's early inventive talent. “When we were boys, “Meccano” sets were all the rage and Francis had a rather elaborate set. With it he made a working model of a rock crusher such as were found in the Azusa-Duarte area where the gravel resources of the San Gabriel River were being exploited by rock companies. He set his model up in the foyer of the old Wild Rose School where it was enviously eyed by many of his companions. Later, with the same set he constructed a working model of a bascule bridge complete with motor drive. Both models displayed considerable ingenuity in design and construction.”
In his teens, Francis pursued his interest in mechanical and electrical invention by developing a system of tractor drawn, heated meal carts to deliver hot meals from the sanatorium kitchen to the outlying patient cottages. According to Francis's diary, he met many frustrations and spent much time repairing the tractors and carts as well as overcoming other maintenance problems. His persistence paid off, however, and his meal delivery system worked and was used until the closing of the sanatorium.
When Francis finished Wild Rose School, he attended Monrovia High School, Los Angeles Military Academy, the Claremont School for Boys (Webb School) and Thatcher in Ojai Valley. This shifting of schools was due in part to intermittent poor health. During his growing years, he suffered chronic otitis media and mastoiditis and was forced to spend two to three months out of every school year in bed. Prior to entering college, he spent nearly three years in bed, making Cottage 80 at the sanatorium his home away from home.
Francis's formal education during this time was largely supervised by members of his family as well as by tutors. Though he took many correspondence courses, he became accustomed to a personalized, Socratic method of learning and maintained a life-long preference for gaining knowledge by conversing with the experts in his various fields of interest rather than by reading.
Though his natural inclination was towards engineering, his father insisted that he become a physician. Accordingly, Francis entered his father's alma mater, Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio, in 1921. Here he met Teresa Elizabeth Saxour and on the day of their graduation, June 17, 1925, they were married. Francis proceeded to the College of Medicine at the University of Cincinnati, also his father's medical school. He received his M.B. in 1929 which allowed him to practice medicine in Ohio. In 1930, he received his M.D. and began his internship at the Los Angeles County Hospital.
During these preparatory years at Otterbein and at medical school, Francis kept extensive notes of his observations and the questions raised by them. His notebook reveals the wide range of his early introspective searchings:
“Is it not probable that the fineness of the hair may be an indication of the thickness of the skin?” 3/14/25
“Why is malignancy rare in the duodenum?” 1/19/28
“Is hunger caused by the deprivation of body tissues of carbohydrates?” 1/27/28
“Is it possible that cancer may be produced by intestinal bacteria which liberate an enzyme that has power to cause the cells of specific tissues to proliferate—the tissues being in such a state that trauma starts the proliferation?”
His earliest contributions to medical literature appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association in November of 1930 when he was still interning at the Los Angeles County Hospital. In two articles, he describes his inventions of “Rubber Flask Connectors for Hypodermoclysis, Intravenous Therapy and Other Uses” and “A New Siphon System for Maintaining Continuous Drainage Without Air Block in Thoracic Empyemas and in Infections of Other Body Cavities.” The latter system, known as Pottenger suction, was adopted by the Chest Surgery Section of the Los Angeles County Hospital and was used for many years until mechanical pumps came into wide use.
While he was attending medical school, he developed a “hatred” for the way civilized man treated himself and his children. He wondered why people, so capable of advancing their technology, failed so miserably in promoting their biological health. He felt a driving need to know and to understand how man could maintain good health and eliminate chronic illness and to prevent children from suffering as he had. This missionary zeal led him to direct his inquiry towards the field of nutrition.
On completing his internship, he became a resident physician at the sanatorium and in 1931 became a vice president of the corporation and associate medical director and the director of research for the Pottenger Sanatorium and Clinic. During the 1930's, Francis began his own research into the treatment of tuberculosis and other respiratory ailments, such as asthma. He became interested in Drs. Pfiffner and Swingle's work with adrenal glands and began conducting experiments feeding adrenal hormones to tuberculosis guinea pigs. In 1937, he published a paper with his Uncle Joseph in which he showed that in 28 percent of the guinea pigs treated with adrenal extracts, there was no evidence of tuberculosis when they were sacrificed for pathological study.
At this time, he also started a small private practice using the sanatorium's facilities, but soon considered the possibility of founding his own clinic. He did not have to look for a suitable site. At the end of the First World War, the Pottenger Sanatorium had been compelled to expand in order to care for returning veterans with pulmonary problems from gas poisoning and infection. Several cottages were built off the main grounds, and as the case load of veterans began to drop, these cottages fell into disuse. Francis purchased them and after extensive remodeling, he opened the Francis M. Pottenger, Jr., Hospital for the treatment of non-tuberculosis diseases of the respiratory system with a particular emphasis on asthma. The opening was in 1940 and the 42 bed hospital operated until 1960.
Continuing his research into the therapeutic use of adrenal hormones, Francis began treating his asthmatic patients with a high protein diet supplemented by freshly ground adrenal glands. This treatment brought marked improvement to most of his patients and led him to make a major commitment to the manufacture of his own adrenal extract known to his patients as “X06.” He designed and built an extracting and refrigerating facility with a walk-in, room-sized freezer, one of the first of its kind. His patent for this facility had nine separate claims.
In the 1930's and 1940's, biological extracts were assayed and standardized by their effects on other biological systems, usually laboratory animals. Francis used cats to determine the hormone content of his adrenal extract. Removing their adrenal glands, he gave them supportive doses of his newly manufactured extracts in order to observe their reactions. Through his observations, he was able to determine the strength of each batch of extract and to obtain the necessary uniformity in potency. It was this process of biological standardization that led to his ten year cat study.
Prior to his death in 1967, Francis was involved in developing photographic and X-ray equipment capable of giving simultaneous exposures with an accurate superimposition of the X-ray and photograph. He planned to investigate the changes in human anatomy over a span of four generations, roughly from 1900, 1920, 1940 to 1960. The study was to consist of X-rays of the skull, hand, foot and thorax of 7000 individuals with corresponding anthropometric photographs and measurements. His preliminary findings were revealing that dramatic changes had occurred in the anatomy of the American male from a turn-of-the-century figure with broad shoulders, stocky neck and narrow hips to a modern figure with small, weak shoulders, longer neck and broad pelvis. The reverse development was appearing in the anatomy of the American female with a 1900 figure showing narrow shoulders and broad pelvis to a 1960 figure showing broad shoulders and a narrow pelvis.
Francis was among the first in his profession to recognize the health hazard of air pollution in Los Angeles County. He worked tirelessly to alert responsible parties to the toxic properties of smog. As a consequence of his efforts, he was appointed to the Los Angeles Air Pollution Control District's Scientific Committee on Air Pollution and was a member of the Air Pollution Committee of the College of Chest Physicians.
He also was among the first to recognize the hazards of pesticides to human health. In a paper entitled “Poisoning from DDT and Other Chlorinated Hydrocarbon Pesticides,” he stated: “The wide-spread use of chlorinated hydrocarbons such as DDT in agriculture, animal husbandry and about the home has been accompanied by a syndrome of hepatic and neurological damage and sometimes death.” This paper presented the first reported cases of insecticide poisoning. He defined the symptoms as (1) hyperirritability, anxiety, confusion, inability to concentrate, forgetfulness as well as slow or racing heart beats, (2) pathological liver hypertrophy, renal lesions, loss of colloid in the thyroid and changes in nerve and skin tissues, and (3) the presence of insecticide in the body's fat deposits.
In the 1940's, Francis became acquainted with Dr. Weston A. Price, a practicing dentist with a congenial spirit of inquiry. In his desire to explain the prevalence of tooth decay and facial inadequacies among his patients and “civilized peoples,” Price set upon a worldwide odyssey to study the dietary habits of fourteen isolated and primitive peoples. He found that those natives who still ate their customary natural foods –whether primarily fish, meat or vegetable –showed broad facial structures, a “perfection” to their dental arches and virtually no tooth decay; while those who had been exposed to the civilized diet of commerce based on refined white sugar, white flour, canned and packaged foods, showed narrowing of their faces, crowding of their teeth and a high incidence of cavities. They also showed increasing susceptibility to tuberculosis and other degenerative disease.
Appreciating the importance of Weston A. Price's findings and their confirmation of his own experimental and clinical findings, Francis became chairman of a committee established for the purpose of disseminating Price's work through exhibits, lectures and printed materials. Later, the Weston A. Price Foundation was organized as a non-profit organization to further this educational purpose. At his death, Francis's extensive library of research data, slides, X-ray studies, papers and articles were entrusted to the foundation by his family. In response, the Board of Directors changed the foundation's name to the Price-Pottenger Foundation and later to the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation. The foundation now actively disseminates the work of both men.
During his professional career, Francis wrote many articles which appeared in different medical publications. One of his favorite, unpublished stories took place at a nutrition meeting he was attending. A reporter came up to him and asked, “Are all these people here interested in nutrition?”
Francis answered, “Yes.”
The reporter commented, “They certainly are not a very healthy looking crowd.”
To which Francis replied quizzically, “Why do you think we are here?”
Francis and Elizabeth had four children: Francis Marion, III, Margaret Elizabeth, Barbara Jane and Samuel Slatter. Francis III received his doctorate in education and is presently supervising the curriculum for the public school system in Hawaii. Margaret is the owner of two dress stores called the Jabberwocky in Tustin, California. Barbara lives with her lawyer husband, Jim Shumar, in Whitacre, Virginia. Samuel is deceased.
Francis's younger brother, Robert Thomas, practiced medicine in Pasadena, California. In addition to promoting the importance of optimal nutrition, Robert pioneered clinical research in the area of food allergy in the treatment and control of arthritis and rheumatism. The authors of this monograph are the son and daughter of Robert. Robert Thomas Pottenger, Jr., is a practicing physician in Pasadena and continues the tradition of his father and uncle in his own research and clinical practice. Elaine Pottenger is a writer.
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