Dr. Abram Hoffer's work could justly be described as being an essential nutrient in its own right. His research, being based on the right questions, correct observations, and relevant assumptions, has functioned as such for the growth of medical knowledge, nourishing every branch of inquiry it touched.

This book tells the story of the rebirth of nutritional medicine in the 20th century and its placement on new foundations of rigorous scientific methodology due to the simultaneous developments in biochemistry.

Today, what is known about addiction, depression, schizophrenia, attention deficit disorders, the nutritional role in cancer prevention and treatment, the connection between stress and mental health, the nutritional deficiencies acting in synergy with vaccine toxicity in autism and the nutritional regimes to reverse this condition, as well as the nutritional treatment of cardiovascular/lipid disorders was either pioneered by Dr. Hoffer or co-developed alongside other giants in those fields, such as two-time Nobel laureate Linus Pauling (who coined the term orthomolecular medicine), Theron Randolph (the father of environmental medicine), Humphrey Osmond, Roger Williams (discoverer of Pantothenic acid and other B vitamins), Irwin Stone (vitamin C pioneer), Bernard Rimland (autism research pioneer) and many others. Patients looking for the basic science involved in the use of nutrition as prevention and treatment of mental disease will find it explained and contextualized for lay readers to get a better understanding of the block-headedness of much mainstream medicine.

Adventures in Psychiatry is dedicated to Tommy Douglas who was Premier of Saskatchewan when Dr. Hoffer was professor of psychiatry in Regina. Douglas energetically supported Dr. Hoffer's efforts to humanize the appalling conditions in the mental asylums of that time and encouraged the research begun into the nutritional deficiency connections to mental disease. We follow the author from his Saskatchewan farm childhood, subsequent training in biochemistry and agricultural science, his early insights into the central importance of soil and plant food quality to human and animal health, to his specialization in psychiatry, professorship, and his daily work with patients. We learn of his disillusionment with traditional methods of treating the mentally ill (e.g. lobotomies), and we share his excitement of discovery as we follow his dramatic case histories, which unfold like detective-stories, as he uncovers the connection between deficiencies in specific nutrients and mental illness.

Long-time colleague Linus Pauling observed that "Dr. Hoffer has made an important contribution to the health of human beings and the decrease of their suffering through the study of the effects of large doses of vitamin C and other nutrients." Harold D. Foster, who teaches medical geography at the University of Victoria in BC, observed that Dr. Hoffer's work served to "undermine the reigning medical paradigms for psychiatry and cardiovascular disease. Fathering a new paradigm does not promote popularity. Fortunately, Dr. Hoffer has consistently proven to be able to stand up for the truth, regardless of personal cost. Look around you, there are health food stores everywhere - now. Let's all thank Abram Hoffer for his courage." Indeed, the first vitamin B tablets were made at the suggestion of Dr. Hoffer, back in the early 1950s, by a compounding pharmacist.

Dr. Hoffer observes: "The most common bad advice I received even from friends was not to continue what we were doing because it made us unpopular. It took me some thought and effort to reject this advice; I feel vindicated in this decision as I see that I have been very popular with my patients ... for the past 50 years."

Helke Ferrie is a medical science writer: helke@inetsonic.com

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