Under the date of MAY 19, 1931, Dr. P. Schrumpf-Pierron presented a paper entitled
"On the Cause Of the Rarity of
Cancer in Egypt," which was printed in the Bulletin of the Academy of Medicine, and the
Bulletin of the French Association for the Study of Cancer in July, 1931. The
following is a digested and simplified version of it:
During the year 1931 I presented to the Academy of Medicine in
Paris several papers on the rarity of cancer in Egypt, which came
to the following conclusions:
(1) Cancer for Egypt is about one-tenth that of Europe
and America.
(2) In Egypt, cancer is less frequent in country
fellahin than in the Egyptians who live in the towns and who
have adopted Europeanized dietary habits.
(3) The degree of malignancy of Egyptian cancers is less
than that of European cancers. They develop less quickly, and
have less of a tendency to invade neighboring tissues.
(4) The type of cancer which is the most frequent in all
the countries rich in cancer is cancer of the digestive, tract,
which represents 40 to 50 percent of all cancers. In the case
of Egyptians, this type of cancer is remarkably rare; in the
country fellahin, practically nonexistent.
My predecessors at l'École de Médecine,
Fergusson, Madden, Day, Dolbey, as well as the eminent English
cancer specialist, Roger Williams,
have arrived at the same conclusions. Engel Bey wrote in 1908. "From these data it appears that the
reputation of Egypt for comparative immunity from cancer is well
founded."
What are the causes of the rarity of cancer in Egypt? After
having eliminated racial and climatic factors for reasons which
can be found in my preceding papers, I said to myself that it
must be looked for in an element contained in the food. It is
this which led me to do research on the food of the fellah, and I
found that that which
characterizes the diet of the fellah is its richness in salts of
magnesium. The fellah consumes in his food, in the water which he
drinks, and in the crude salt which he uses from 2.5 to 3 grams
of magnesium per day, against 4 to 5 grams of potash.
What is, by comparison, the mineralization of the average diet
of the inhabitant of the towns of Europe and America? Let us look
at the following:
Bread--for the populace, bread
furnishes 40 percent of the calorie total; in the well-to-do
classes only 20 Percent. And it is always a question of bread
which is relatively rich in potash, poor in minerals in general.
Thus the principal contribution of magnesium is lacking.
Meat--the amount of minerals in
meat is practically negligible.
Potatoes--the 'industrial'
varieties of potatoes with a large yield and with voluminous
tubercles all show an excessive wealth of potash and are poor in
magnesium. Thus, the consumption of large quantities of potatoes,
such, for example, in, Germany, represents an important
contribution in potash.
Doughs, rices, macaronis,
etc. have the same composition as the flours from which they have
been made. (Thus .5 percent of ashes at the maximum). Husked and
polished rice is also poor in mineral elements.
Vegetables--spinach, carrots,
beets, celery, cabbage, peas, all are rich in potash. (0.5
Percent). Except for spinach, they are poor in magnesium, but
contain at times as much calcium as potash. Salads have as an
average 0.38 percent of potash, 0.08 percent of, calcium, and
0.04 percent of magnesium.
But, according to the analyses of M. Villain, the greater part of vegetables today
are, compared to those of Wolff's time (1870), too poor in
magnesium and relatively too rich in potash.
Fruits--only the skins and
rinds of fruits contain minerals and in particular magnesium.
Dairy products--milk is relatively rich in potash (0.17 percent),
in calcium (0.16 percent), poor in magnesium (0.02 percent).
It can thus be seen that
whole cereals, especially corn, are
the foodstuffs in which there is enough magnesium. It is
because of the processing and refining of foods that the world is
being robbed of magnesium. Whereas
the Egyptian fellah's ratio is 2.5 to 3 grams of magnesium
against 4 to 5 grams of potash a day, in Europe and America it is
only 0.5 gram of magnesium against 2 to 4 grams of potash per
day.
An intoxication of potash--an
excess of potash poisons--can "kill" the soil where the food is
grown. It poisons the plants, then man. Besides, several other
authorities have already accused potash of producing cancer.
Theis and Benedikt, as will as Mentrier, have already stated that
the higher amount of potash in cancerous tissue, which is a
radioactive body, would cause the multiplication of cancerous
cells.
P. Rosenstein and H. Kohler (from Berlin), who have just
published the results of their researches on the causes of
cancer, come to the same conclusions:
"If our opinion is correct, that is to say that potassium
plays a preponderant role in the genesis of cancer, we will be
better able to understand why the number of cancer cases has
increased to such a degree: because the generalisation of
the use of modern chemical fertilizers today brings to
the organism of men and animals much more potash than was
formerly true."
It is absence of
magnesium that permits potash to become toxic and
cancerogenic. Potash is useful and indispensable to the plant as
to man, but only if it is in a favorable ratio with magnesium and
calcium. Magnesium acts as a
"brake for cancer" (Delbet), as
much as an antitoxic of potash. This is why "the predisposition
to cancer accompanies the deficit of magnesium reserves" (Dubar
and Voisenet). The older the individual is, the easier the
intoxication by potash, because the organism grows older and
becomes poorer in magnesium than the young organism; this loss in
magnesium decreases vitality, resistance, the power of
regeneration of cells (Delbet), "provoking a sort of cellular
anarchy which favors the evolution of cancerous processes"
(L. Randoin). Thus one must
conceive the role of magnesium as twofold: first as an antitoxin
for potash and second as an antisenility element.
But why, it will be objected, are there in Europe agricultural
districts where the inhabitants eat principally products of their
own land, many vegetables, little meat, brown bread, etc., and
where, however, we find regular nests of cancer, villages where
the cancer mortality reaches enormous proportions? Because it is
a question of districts where the earth has become so poor in
magnesium, or where an excessive amount of chemical fertilizing
made it so rich in potash, that the ratio of magnesium, potash,
and calcium has become unfavorable to such a point that it leads
particularly quickly to cancer. It is a question then in some way
of a surmineralization by minerals the balance of which is
unfavorable. It is thus that one can often explain the
failure, and at times the clearly harmful effect, of the classic
milk-vegetarian diet, of which there have been so many
practitioners again these past years. The magnesium content is
too low.
The practical conclusions which result from our thesis are the
following:
To prevent cancer and progressively diminish its
frequency, two conditions should be fulfilled:
First, agriculture should tend to produce new healthy plants,
with "normal" mineralization. This can be obtained, as proved by
M. Villain, by a regeneration of the earth with the aid of
appropriate fertilizers, under a systematic control of the
mineralization of cultivated vegetables. It is a question of a
new science, which must be inspired with the fundamental
principle that abnormal mineralization of an alimentary plant
logically has its repercussion on the mineral balance of animals
and men who feed themselves on it; that besides, the more
the mineralization is "normal," the more the alimentary quality,
if not the yield of the plant, is raised; that finally, in
agriculture, quality must never be sacrificed to quantity.
Second, the principles of modem alimentary hygiene must be
greatly modified and above all detached from the too-narrow
concept of "caloric worth" of an aliment as the only measure of
its "nutritive worth." The overly civilized world feeds itself
poorly. Without being obliged to return to the quasi animal diet
of the fellahin, it should relearn to mineralize itself normally.
Thus, it is above all a bread reform that should be imposed; that
is, certain varieties of wheat grown that are richer in magnesium
than others. But the safest cereal is corn (maize) in which the
proportion of magnesium is quite high. Corn is the magnesium
aliment par excellence.
Even when it grows on less favorable soil, less rich, in
magnesium than Egyptian soil, corn still always contains a
relatively large amount of magnesium, little potash and calcium,
and a lot of phosphoric acid.
In the southern countries, where corn is the base of the
diet of the people, cancer is relatively rare. It is very rare
where the corn is consumed integrally, as is done by the fellahin
in Egypt. If colored people in, the United States show less
cases of cancer than whites, it is not because the dark race is
refractory, as has been said, but very probably because the
American Negroes have retained the African habit of eating
corn.
One can state that the problem of cancer and many other
illnesses depends mainly on the bread in the diet. There must be
a reorganization of agricultural methods, especially with regard
to the kind of fertilizers used, and a change of concept in the
food factories and bakeries. It is urgent that we act, because
cancer is terribly on the increase.
With regard to fertilizers, the
organic method, using no chemical fertilizer but only composts
made from animal manures and vegetable matter, ensures against
the overapplication of potash to the soil. Read our magazine
Organic Gardening. Dolomite limestone, rich in magnesium should be
used.
Here are some figures:
In 1961 the cancer death rate per 100,000 population was 178.3
for the New England states, compared to 128.2 for the South
Atlantic states. The Middle Atlantic states (New York, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania) had a rate of 180.5, compared to 127.7 in
the East South Central states. The highest rate for the
continental United States was in New York (186.5) and the lowest
in New Mexico (78.8).
More corroboration. In 1958, the last year for which a figure
is available, the Egyptian rate was 28.5 and the United States
rate, 146.9.
Eat plenty of corn.
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January 3, 2001
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