RICHARD A. KUNIN, M.D.
2698 Pacific Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94115
Tel: 415-346-2500 Fax: 346-4991
31 July 2000
ROOTS OF MOLECULAR MEDICINE
Edited By Richard P. Huemer, M.D. W. H. Freeman, NYC, 1986
This book is the most intimate description of the story of orthomolecular
medicine in existence. The fact that these essays are written by some of the
pioneers of orthomolecular medicine is what gives this small volume a
weighty presence in medical history. Roots is a collection of papers
presented at the Orthomolecular Medical Society in 1983. It includes basic
science papers by Emile Zuckerkandl on susceptibility to disease; Richard
Jones and Daniel Shih on hemoglobin variants; Jerzy Meduski on photon
counting (chemiluminescence) in measurement of tissue oxidation; lrwin Stone
on vitamin C; Stephen Levine and Parris Kidd on Antioxidant Adaptation,
Ewen Cameron on carnitine; Melvin Greenblatt on nitrites, nitrosamines and
vitamin C; Jonathan Rothschild on phospholipids, and Denham Harman on
The Aging Process. There are clinical orthomolecular papers by Jeffrey Bland
on treating lipid peroxidation, Michael Rosenbaum on immunology and
Richard Kunin on orthomolecular psychiatry. And there are classic reviews
of the events that shaped orthomolecular medicine by John Catchpool, lrving
Bengelsdorf, Zelek Herman, Richard Huemer, and Linus Pauling.
There is no other compendium on orthomolecular medicine as entertaining
and informative as this one; and none so full of personal details and
historical anecdotes that illustrate Linus Pauling's devotion to ortho-
molecular medicine, the major area of his research efforts in the last third of
his life. Because the very word 'orthomolecular' remains controversial, this
aspect of Dr. Pauling's achievements has been downplayed by his
biographers, There is no other source that equals Roots in providing a
perspective on Linus Pauling's medical thinking and research that comes as
close to "virtual reality" as this one. You will prize your copy of Roots
because you will find something of your own intellectual and professional
roots here.
Dr. Huemer deserves to be proud of this accomplishment as editor of Roots
of Molecular Medicine; and everyone with any interest in orthomolecular
medicine should have this book. It reads better every time I go back to It.
While it may someday go out of print, its value can only increase, for it will
never go out of date.
Richard A. Kunin, M.D.
President, Society for Orthomolecular Health Medicine