Cancer

Some thirteen years after the above-mentioned Canadian government expedition a similar medical research expedition was sent into the Canadian eastern Arctic by Queens University of Kingston, Ontario. Their report, as pertains to cancer, is by Drs. Brown, Cronk, and Boag and refers to Dr. Rabinowitch and his “one suspicious case.” I quote from Cancer, Journal of the American Cancer Society, Vol. V (1952):

“It is commonly stated that cancer does not occur in the Eskimos, and to our knowledge no case has so far been reported. Rabinowitch (1936) mentions the absence of reports of its occurrence and gives details of a suspicious case ... In August, 1949, the opportunity came to the Queens University Arctic Expedition to carry out an autopsy on an elderly Eskimo man who had died of a wasting illness. Histological study of a mass in the neck has shown carcinomatous tissue. The patient was a pure blooded Ivilik of about 70 years.”

This being a positively identified case, although questioned by a pathologist, and as such the first in the region, it is unfortunate that the authors do not say anything about the way of life of the “pure blooded Ivilik of about 70 years” who is our first known local native malignancy victim. However, the usual diet and way of life of the Iviliks are well known, The Indians of Canada (1932) by Dr. Diamond Jenness being the frequently revised authority. In 1949, the discovery date of this first certified malignancy, Dr. Jenness was the chief Eskimo specialist of the Canadian government. Discussing our region, he says, on pages 421-22 of his 1932 edition:

“The Eskimos of eastern Canada ... have been in contact with Europe for more than two hundred years ... partly from a misguided imitation of Europeans, many Eskimos now wear woolen clothing and even the complete European costume, although their earlier garments of loosely fitting caribou were more picturesque and hygienic, and offered greater protection against the cold.

“Very few Eskimos now hunt intensively during the winter months; instead they trap foxes which are useless to them for either food or clothing. In order to maintain their families during the season they buy European food from the fur traders, largely flour, sugar and tea.”

These paragraphs written around 1930, give an approximate picture of how the first known cancer victim of this district must have been living for some decades prior to his death in 1949.

I am writing at the beginning of October. Now the women are going for trips up the hillsides in small parties and enjoying themselves picking berries and gossiping. They find a fair number of cranberries and whortleberries, but no great quantities. Cloudberries are scarce in the Anaktuvak Pass; there are said to be more farther north, on the tundra.

The berries are stored raw, sometimes in a washed-out caribou's stomach, and mixed with melted fat or lard. This dish is called asiun and is considered a special delicacy.

They also dig up some roots. The most sought after are maso, qunguliq (mountain sorrel), and airaq. What is collected is consumed before winter sets in. No new green food is to be had till May; then roots and the fresh shoots and inner bark of the willow are eaten. Thus, for about seven months the Nunamiuts live on an exclusively meat diet, and for the rest of the year their vegetable nourishment is very scanty.

The caribou is dealt with traditionally. Every single part of the animal is eaten except the bones and hooves. The coarse meat, which in civilization is used for joints and steaks, is the least popular. In autumn and spring it is used to a certain extent for dried meat; otherwise it is given to the dogs. The heart, liver, kidneys, stomach and its contents, small intestines with contents (if they are fat), the fat round the bowels, marrow fat from the back, the meat which is near the legs, etc., are eatn. Both adults and children are very fond of the large white tendons on the caribou's legbones; they maintain that food of this kind gives one good digestion. The head is regarded as a special delicacy; the meat, the fat behind the eyes, nerves, muzzle, palate, etc., are eaten. Finally, there are the spring delicacies--the soft, newly grown horns and the large yellowish-white grubs on the inside of the hide(those of the gadfly) and in the nostrils. The grubs are eaten alive.

The meat is often cooked, but to a large extent it is also eaten raw. The children often sit on a freshly killed caribou, cut off pieces of meat, and make a good meal. It is also common practice to serve a dish of large bones to which the innermost raw meat adheres. Dried meat and fat are always eaten raw. 

The Nunamiuts' cuisine also offers several choice delicacies. First and foremost is akutaq. To prepare this dish, fat and marrow are melted in a cooking-pot, which must not get t oo warm, meat cut fine is dropped in on the top, and then the woman uses her fist and arm as a ladle to stir it about. The result is strong and tastes very good. Akutuq has since ancient times been used on journeys as an easily made and nourishing food and is fairly often mentioned in the old legends. 

Then there is qaqisalik, caribou's brains stirred up with melted fat. A favourite dish is nirupkaq, a caribou's stomach with its contents which is left in the animal for a night and then has melted fat added to it. It has a sweetish taste which reminds one of apples. Finally, there is knuckle fat. The knuckles are crushed with a stone hammer to which a willow handle has been lashed. Then the mass is boiled til the fat flies up. The Eskimos attach great importance to the boiling's not being too hard; delicate taste. Sometimes it is mixed with blood, and then becomes a special dish called urjutilik. 

The Nunamiuts like chewing boiled resin and a kind of white clay which is found in certain rivers. Salt is hardly used at all. If an Eskimo family has acquired a little, it is used very occasionally, with roast meat. The small amount of sugar, flour, etc., which is flown in in autumn is of little significance and has, generally speaking, disappeared before the winter comes. Some Eskimos do not like sugar.

For a while coffee or tea is drunk, but these are quickly finished. Then the Eskimos fall back on their old drink, the gravy of the cooked meat.

The Nunamiuts thrive on this almost exclusively meat diet; scurvy or other diseases due to shortages of vitamins do not exist. They are, in fact, thoroughly healthy and full of vitality, so long as sicknesses are not imported by aircraft. They live to be quite old, and it is remarkable how young and active men and women remain at a considerable age. Hunters of fifty have hardly a trace of grey hair, and no one is bald. All have shining white teeth with not a single cavity. The mothers nurse their children for two or three years.

It is an interesting question whether cancer occurs among the Nunamiuts or among primitive peoples at all. On this point I dare not as a layman express an opinion, but I heard little of stomach troubles. During my stay among the Apache Indians in Arizona (1936) a doctor in the reservation told me that cancer had not been observed among the people. According to a Danish doctor, Dr. Aage Gilberg (Eskimo Doctor, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1948), cancer is never sene among the Thule Eskimos in northwestern Greenland. The matter deserves more detailed investigation; it may possibbly give certain results of assistance to cancer research.

The Indian caribou hunters I once lived with in Arctic Canada had a similar meat diet and good health. As for myself, my fare was the same as the Indians' and the Eskimos'--practically speaking, I lived only on meat for nearly five years. I felt well and in good spirits, provided I got enough fat. My digestion was good and my teeth in an excellent state. After my stay with the Nunamiuts I had not a single hole in my teeth and no tartar.

No doubt the hunters of the Ice Age, in Norway and elsewhere, lived in a similar way many thousand years ago. We are probably in the presence of what is most ancient among the traditions of primitive peoples. Taught by experience, they have arrived at a manner of living which, despite its onesideness, fully satisifies the body's requirements. The principle is to transfer almost everything that is found in the caribou to the human organism. 

It is interesting to note that the stomach and liver of animals are regular features in the diet of primitive peoples, whereas modern science has only quite recently established that these contain elements of special value to human beings. The remedy for the previously deadly pernicious anemia is obtained from them. The contents of the caribou's stomach and the newly grown horns merit a closer examination by modern methods. It is a question, for example, whether the cellulose of the moss decomposed in the caribou's stomach and thereby becomes available to the human organism. With regard to the horns, it is of interest that certain deer's horns from northeastern Manchuria have from time immemorial been a regular article of commerce in China, where they have been used as a cure for impaired virility.

Typed up by Travis Statham from physical book. This is the best quote in the entire book. 

Note: Helge Ingstad lived to be 101 (1899-2001).

Ingestion of heat polymerized linseed oil was followed by lowered growth rates in rats, this growth depression becom ing more severe with increased lengths of heating time of the oils and with increased amounts of oil in the diet (Crampton et al., '51). Our earlier experiments indicated that the low nutritive value of heated linseed oil diets is attributable to the oil itself and not to the effects of the heated oil upon non-lipid diet constituents. As thermal treatment causes oil to be less stable to oxida tion, it has been proposed that biologically deleterious prod ucts may accumulate through progressive autoxidation during storage of the oil-containing diets at room temperature. Oven temperatures used during the baking of the diets may also promote oxidative changes. The extent of autoxidation can be controlled by the addition of an anti-oxidant. A mixture of nordihydroguararetic acid (NDGA) with citric acid has been shown to be an effective anti-oxiclant for edible fats, increasing stability even in baked products (Mattil et al., '45; Higgins and Black, '45). The question of vitamin E deficiency in heated oils also seemed worthy of consideration at this time, since polymeriza tion at 275°C.would destroy any of this vitamin inherent in the original oil. The absence of vitamin E, a natural antioxidant, presumably permits a more rapid onset of autoxidation. In addition, a relation of vitamin E to growth, over and above its stabilization of linoleic acid, has been shown in insects by Fraenkel and Blewett ('46). In the feeding of heated lard to rats, Morris and his co-workers ('43) noted a depression of growth and also a paralysis simulating a vita min E deficiency. Therefore it was possible that in our tests thermal destruction of vitamin E was responsible in part for the adverse effects we had observed to result from feeding heat-polymerized linseed oil.

That the cancer incidence has continued low in the Canadian eastern Arctic — east of Anderson River and west of Labrador — is to be inferred from an article in The Canadian Medical Association Journal of Toronto for 1956 (LXXV, 486-88) signed by Drs. Lawson, Saunders, and Cowen, which says:

“For the past 10 years we have been aware of the relative freedom of Eskimos [of the Canadian eastern Arctic] from breast cancer and cystic disease. In spite of strenuous efforts, we have so far been unable to discover one authenticated case of Eskimo breast malignancy.”

Toward the end of her first letter to me, the one dated February 19, 1957, having dealt already with the case of Jobe, Mrs. Greist goes on to discuss a form of cancer that is frequent among whites in Europe and North America, breast cancer in women. The letter says:

“This I know, we never found any women with lumps in their breasts. I never knew, in all my 17 years of nursing in the hospital with Dr. Greist, of a single woman who did not breast-feed her child, and nurse it for 2, 3, and up to 4 years ... I never observed a caked breast or a sore nipple.”