1906 - 1991
Born: 1906 (Boston, MA) Died: March 22, 1991 (Wash., D.C.)
The untimely death of the cancer screen
I'm here to eulogize: The screen's mean genes were not foreseen They, too, would metastasize. Anonymous poet
The quotation on the previous page
was taken from a rare book,
entitled Plants Used Against Cancer* by Dr. Jonathan L. Hartwell,
who worked at the National Cancer Institute from 1938 (in fact,
according to Ralph W. Moss, was
one of
its founders) until his
retirement from the NCI's Natural Products Section (which he
also founded) in 1975.
He studied botanical sources for cancer treatment for most of
his career. The book was published in 1981 by Quarterman
Publications in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and although it
is Hartwell's most quoted work and it's probably safe to say
it was his "magnum opus," it still was one of only a hundred
or more papers and books which Hartwell authored.
Not long after the book was published Quarterman Publications went out of business and Dr. Hartwell died. We own an original hardbound copy of the book and keep it at our offices. Jonathan Hartwell was born in 1906 and educated at Harvard. He earned in bachelor's degree in 1927; master's in 1929; and a doctorate in 1935. He was employed by both DuPont and Interchemical Corporation before his association with the National Cancer Institute in 1938. As head of the National Products Section, Hartwell devoted himself to the reserach and administration of cancer research. He was honored with a seat on the editorial board of the Journal of Ethnopharmacology as well as membership in the professional societies: the American Chemical Society, the American Society of Pharmacognosy, the Society for Economic Botany, and the Phytochemical Society of North America. Hartwell died on March 22, 1991 in Washington, D.C., where he resided with his wife, Ann. We feel that the following quotation, taken from the book's foreword by Jim Duke, is a story worth telling. As you read this excerpt, remember that it was written in January, 1982: "... I view [Jonathan's book] as one epitaph to the cancer-screening program involving the National Cancer Institute with the U.S. Department of Agriculture for nearly 25 years. In a blow to natural-products chemistry in the United States, the Board of Scientific Counsellors, Division of Cancer Treatment, National Cancer Institute, voted on October 2, 1981, to abolish the NCI research contract program concerned with the development of antitumor agents from plants. I fear this signals the end of significant government-sponsored research in the United States on medicinal plants, leaving research to the pharmaceutical firms, who have shown relative disinterest in plant products. Dr. Wilburn H. Ferguson &
The Suppression of Ammatosin
We are aware of a number of cases involving
Jonathan Hartwell's work -- where higher-appointed authorities within the
NCI, acting in concert with friends in the pharmaceutical industry, would
squash a project that showed real promise in the area of cancer research.
One of these was an herbal project called "ammatosin," developed over a twenty
year period by a phytopharmacologist who has been reported to be the
original inspiration behind the movie, Medicine Man (1992),
Dr. Wilburn H. Ferguson. [The fictional story, however, takes place
in neighboring Brazil.] As the story is told by Ferguson family members, Wilburn went to the Amazonian jungles of eastern Equador in the 1950's to research a herbal product that was reported to cure cancer in all but the rarest of cases. He spent about twenty years reducing the formula, which was part of the oral ethnobotanical pharmacopaeia of the Jivaro indians, from 35 herbs down to 7 -- in other words, he left in the formula only those herbal components which were shown to make a contribution to the cancerolytic process. A series of clinical human studies were initiated, all of which demonstrated that the product worked as well as any control pharmaceutical to which it was compared. (One set of clinicals were conducted in Pama Valley, California - 1959-1960; to be followed by other clinicals that produced similar results). Dr. Hartwell was first notified of these results by Professor John Harris in a letter dated April 6, 1971 -- upon which Hartwell began investigations of his own. Ferguson attempted to get funding from George Zimmer (owner of Men's Warehouse in Houston), but was unsuccessful. Hartwell was asked to drop the investigation, funding was never obtained as a result of a lack of any "official" approval, and today, the product is made privately by members of the Ferguson family -- who refuse to do anything further to bring the formula to the public for fear of reprisal from regulatory agencies. Such is the legacy of the best minds in natural, alternative botanical solutions to cancer treatment in the modern age. And no such list could be properly compiled without including the name of Jonathan Hartwell. Footnotes & Relevant Links
* --- Plants Used Against Cancer was published in hardbound in 1982 by
Quarterman Publications, Inc. (last address of record: 5 South Union Street,
Lawrence, Massachusetts 01843). We went to great lengths to contact any
remnants of Quarterman in early 1993 -- to no avail. Their last phone
number was (508) 689-0207, and the offices were in a structure known
as the "Ere Mill Building." We could find no one who would admit
knowing anything about the company in Lawrence. For the record, the
book copyright page reads, "This work is a facsimile compilation of
the serialization entitled, "Plants Used Against Cancer. A Survey"
by Jonathan L. Hartwell which appeared in Lloydia in eleven
installments between 1967 and 1971. The original text has been
reproduced chronologically with the pages renumbered consecutively.
A forward has been added to this edition." [by Jim Duke, dated
January, 1982] Plants Used Against Cancer was part of
a two volume "Bioactive Plants" series published by Quarterman. The
first volume was called Medicinal Uses of Plants by
Indian Tribes of Nevada by Percy Train, James R. Hendrich,
and W. Andrew Archer. Additional identifying information on
Plants Used Against Cancer includes the following:
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 81-85230 International Standard Book Number: 0-88000-130-5 Printed in the United States of America Herbalgram article on Hartwell Chinese Tree Extract -- a valuable cancer-fighting botanical source, the discovery of which was a Hartwell contribution Hartwell and the Yew Tree discovery Comments on his work in uncovering plant-based cancerolytics Comments on Jonathan Hartwell by Ralph W. Moss The Hoxsey Formula -- Hartwell founded cancer-fighting properties in virtually all the herbs used in the much maligned internal Hoxsey formula.
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