Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 2,111

This is the grave of Francis Benedict.

Born in 1870 in Milwaukee, Benedict went to Harvard and then Heidelberg University in Germany. He did his PhD in Germany, since that educational system was far more advanced than that of the U.S. in the 1890s.

Benedict got a job teaching at Wesleyan University. He became a leading nutritionist. He particularly was interested in the body’s metabolism. He conducted a lot of experiments on this issue. That included animal testing, and I think of the horrors of this and get angry about animal testing. He did lots of human experiments as well, but I think–I hope at least–that these were voluntarily. I do know that at least some of them were in fact voluntary. Sometimes, a crazy person just thinks they are going to put their bodies through some sort of hell for the sake of science. Good for them. I guess? Maybe? Personally, I’d suggest eating food instead. There was a guy named Agostino Levanzin. He was from Malta (though that last name suggests at least a family connection elsewhere). He was a man educated in medicine after rising from the working class who migrated to the U.S. He became interested in the idea of fasting as a health benefit. So Benedict had him fast under study for 31 days in order to do research on him, which Levanzin agreed to. Again, I’d recommend eating food. But at least this was consensual. There’s actually a New York Times article on all this in 1912.

But I guess it’s good that if people were going to sacrifice for this kind of thing, Benedict was the science. He did a lot of experiments on how bodies responded to a lack of calories. One of his findings was that people and animals both required fewer calories for mental effort than expected. He stated in one talk “The cloistered scholar at his books may be surprised to learn that the extra calories needed for one hour of intense mental effort would be completely met by the eating of one oyster cracker or half of a salted peanut.”

I mean, OK…but on the other hand, why? Also, what if the peanut was unsalted? I don’t mean to be totally flippant here, but this all seems pretty stupid to me. What is the actual point? I mean, sure, understanding how the body works has value in itself. But from a labor perspective, this all sounds like justification to pay workers less since do they really need to eat anyway? I have no evidence any of this was Benedict’s goal. But also life is better with tasty food. Health faddists are freaking weirdos, as here I mean more Levanzin than Benedict, who I don’t think was personally fasting.

Benedict did a lot of research on reptiles too. This was related to his fasting research, since reptiles can go so long without eating. But of course they also adjust their body temperatures to allow them to do this, which humans cannot do. He would also starve other animals, just to see what happens. So he starved a fowl (not sure if this is a goose in this situation or precisely which bird) could go 40 days without food. Yes, but why would it?

This all seems a bit arcane today, but it’s worth noting that Benedict was a big deal with his discoveries in the 30s and 40s. I don’t necessarily have the scientific knowledge to lay all this out to the effectiveness someone else who might be insane enough to have a grave series now in the 2100s might, but you do the best you can. Less arcane is his belief that alcohol is a food. There’s some nutrition we can all believe in! According to his New York Times obituary, he also made the scientific claim that a steer is more careful with what it puts in its stomach than a college student. Now that is objectively true.

Later in life, Benedict became obsessed with magicians. So, well, OK.

Also, researching someone named Francis Benedict got a lot more complicated when you had two very different popes with those names who get a lot more attention than a nutritionist.

Benedict died in 1957. He was 86 years old.

Francis Benedict is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

If you would like this series to visit other nutrition scientists–this ought to really push the donations forward–you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Adelle Davis is in Rancho Palos Verdes, California and Wilbur Olin Atwater is in Middletown, Connecticut. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.