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A founding father of the alternative health movement, Dr. Abram Hoffer, a Victoria-based medical doctor, influenced the work of Linus Pauling and Ewan Cameron with Vitamin C.
Born in Hoffer, Saskatchewan in 1917, he studied chemistry, medicine and psychiatry in Saskatchewan, Minnesota and Toronto. He worked for Purity Flour Mills in the early 1940s, at which time he persuaded his employers to add vitamins to their white bread. As Director of Psychiatric Research in the Department of Public Health for Saskatchewan from 1950 to 1957, he and Humphrey Osmond developed vitamin B-3 treatments for cardiovascular disease and schizophrenia. Critical of psychosomatic psychoanalysis, he developed at theory that schizophrenics lack the means to effectively eliminate adrenochrome from their brains. He experimented with the potentially useful effects of LSD and created the Journal of Schizophrenia, renamed the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine in 1986. He came to live and work in Victoria in 1976 and retired from private practice in 2005, continuing to edit the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine. As a pioneer of orthomolecular medicine, Dr. Hoffer became the co-recipient of the first Dr. Rogers Prize for Excellence in Complimentary and Alternative Medicine in Vancouver on November 2, 2007. The award is named for UBC professor Dr. Roger Rogers, co-founder of the Centre for Integrated Healing. [He was predeceased by his son, bookseller William Hoffer--separate entry.] He died in Victoria in 2009.
BOOKS:
How to Live With Schizophrenia,
The Hallucinogens,
New Hope for Alcoholics
Niacin Therapy in Psychiatry
Orthomolecular Nutrition: New Lifestyle for Super Good Health
Small Nutrients: A Guide to Nutrients That Can Prevent and Reverse Senility
Hoffer's Laws of Natural Nutrition: A Guide to Eating Well for Pure Health (Quarry Press, 1996)
[BCBW 2009]
Born in Hoffer, Saskatchewan in 1917, he studied chemistry, medicine and psychiatry in Saskatchewan, Minnesota and Toronto. He worked for Purity Flour Mills in the early 1940s, at which time he persuaded his employers to add vitamins to their white bread. As Director of Psychiatric Research in the Department of Public Health for Saskatchewan from 1950 to 1957, he and Humphrey Osmond developed vitamin B-3 treatments for cardiovascular disease and schizophrenia. Critical of psychosomatic psychoanalysis, he developed at theory that schizophrenics lack the means to effectively eliminate adrenochrome from their brains. He experimented with the potentially useful effects of LSD and created the Journal of Schizophrenia, renamed the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine in 1986. He came to live and work in Victoria in 1976 and retired from private practice in 2005, continuing to edit the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine. As a pioneer of orthomolecular medicine, Dr. Hoffer became the co-recipient of the first Dr. Rogers Prize for Excellence in Complimentary and Alternative Medicine in Vancouver on November 2, 2007. The award is named for UBC professor Dr. Roger Rogers, co-founder of the Centre for Integrated Healing. [He was predeceased by his son, bookseller William Hoffer--separate entry.] He died in Victoria in 2009.
BOOKS:
How to Live With Schizophrenia,
The Hallucinogens,
New Hope for Alcoholics
Niacin Therapy in Psychiatry
Orthomolecular Nutrition: New Lifestyle for Super Good Health
Small Nutrients: A Guide to Nutrients That Can Prevent and Reverse Senility
Hoffer's Laws of Natural Nutrition: A Guide to Eating Well for Pure Health (Quarry Press, 1996)
[BCBW 2009]
