Historical Event
Date:
January 1, 1898
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Cancer was unknown among the Eskimos until their food was Europeanized.
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Important Text:
In a letter of December 11, 1957, Superintendent Peacock says of his predecessor, the Reverend Paul Hettasch (who came to Labrador in 1898, thus four years ahead of Dr. Hutton) that he “was deeply interested in things medical. Although he had had but a short medical course, he was a competent doctor and surgeon (minor), a very keen observer ... He ... had little use for the Eskimo who aped the white man ... I believe that Hettasch probably predated Dr. Hutton in his statement that cancer was unknown among the Eskimos. However, the Eskimos had for some time been exposed to a white man's diet when Hettasch came to the coast, although never to the extent they were after the Hudson's Bay Company took over the trade from the Moravian Mission in 1924.” Elsewhere Peacock says that there has been since 1943 a further increase in the Europeanization of the diet, on account of certain policies of the Newfoundland government.
Topics: (click image to open)
Eskimo | The Inuit lived for as long as 10,000 years in the far north of Canada, Alaska, and Greenland and likely come from Mongolian Bering-Strait travelers. They ate an all-meat diet of seal, whale, caribou, musk ox, fish, birds, and eggs. Their nutritional transition to civilized plant foods spelled their health demise. | |
Cancer | Cancer is a metabolic disease where the mitochrondria are no longer able to burn fatty acids and instead rely on fermentation of glucose and glutamine. Ketogenic diets have been used to prevent and cure cancer, as they induce a metabolic stress on cancer cells who cannot use ketones as fuel. |