In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Toledo Dentist Charles Betts and the Health Crusade Against Aluminum
  • Jerry Bergman (bio)

The almost half-century crusade against the use of aluminum cooking utensils in America is an excellent example of a popular movement that supported a conclusion almost universally regarded as pseudoscience by scientists. The movement claimed that use of products containing aluminum caused scores of serious diseases, including cancer, ulcers, cerebrospinal meningitis, anaphylactic shock, heart attacks (even in children), blindness, kidney trouble, tumors, tonsillitis, boils, paralysis, skin eruptions, asthma, hay fever, insanity, anemia, and “all manner of unhealth,” and that aluminum products, especially aluminum cooking utensils, were “a curse to humanity and their manufacture and use should be forbidden by law.”1

The anti-aluminum campaign was part of the wider cultural movement against orthodox medicine often called the “natural science movement,” which stressed using “natural foods” to treat illness and eschewed what it regarded as “unnatural remedies,” such as drugs.2 Followers strongly opposed “compulsory medication,” such as water fluoridation, vaccination, immunization, [End Page 91] and pasteurization.3 The movement was aided by the fact that in the early 1920s, medicine was still suffering from the stigma of its history, and its successes were relatively few. In the nineteenth century, “medicine was regarded as a lowly trade, in which cures were rare and scientific understanding of disease was even rarer.”4 Furthermore, the failure of orthodox medicine to cure patients by mercury treatment and the “debilitating bleedings, purges, and emetics all made a significant proportion of the population wary of orthodox physicians.”5 Many of the claims of these natural scientists are still with us today, although less widespread, with advocates often referred to as the fringe “heath food movement.” Evidence of this is the 1937 natural scientists’ publication Death in the Pot, which is still in print.6

Aluminum was a relatively unfamiliar metal, despite it being the third most common element in the Earth’s crust. Although discovered in 1828 by German chemist Frederick Wöhler, only small amounts of the purified metal could be obtained, and only at a very high cost. Then, in 1866, Oberlin College student Charles M. Hall developed a practical electrolytic process that lowered the cost enormously. As a result of this and processing improvements, the price of aluminum plummeted from $90 per pound to as low as 27 cents per pound in the 1920s. In 1892, the first aluminum cookware was manufactured.7 Soon hundreds of products made from aluminum became common. By the late 1920s, aluminum had become a huge business (Charles Betts claimed that over 200,000 tons were produced in 1926). Aluminum was an ideal metal for many uses, including cookware, because it is an excellent heat conductor.

The Background of Dr. Betts

The writings and speeches of Toledo dentist Charles T. Betts (1879–1959), who self-published several books on the topic and “stumped the country in support” of his ideas, were the basis of the over-three-decade-long campaign against aluminum. His importance is indicated by historians Allen R. Freeze and Jay H. Lehr, who call Betts the “North American guru of the anti-aluminum movement.” And Donald McNeil wrote, “Foremost among the spokesmen for the ‘natural scientists’ was an elderly dentist from Toledo, [End Page 92] Ohio, Dr. Charles T. Betts. In 1902, though he had not been graduated from dental school, Betts received a license to practice dentistry in Ohio. . . . In the 1920’s he established the Research Publishing Company in Toledo and began to turn out pamphlets and books attacking the use of aluminum cooking ware. Betts’ publications ranged from ‘Aspirin Poisoning’ and ‘Early Grave via the Modern Kitchen?’ to ‘Death in the Pot’ and ‘Cause of Trembles.’”8


Click for larger view
View full resolution

This Golden Age cartoon from September 23, 1936, illustrates the adverse health effects of aluminum, including cancer and death.

Betts, born in Bettsville, Ohio, lived in Maumee, a suburb of Toledo, at 229 East Dudley Street for most of his life. He started practicing dentistry at the turn of the twentieth century, when dental school education was not [End Page 93] required, and was grandfathered into the profession when a graduate degree became...

pdf

Share