Franklin Bicknell: Difference between revisions

British physician and writer

Franklin Ethrayne Bicknell (20 March 1906 – 1 December 1964) M.D, M.R.C.P was a British physician, nutritionist and writer.^[1]

Bicknell was born at Great Amwell, the son of Ethrayne Adrimar Bicknell, a solicitor, and his wife Ethel Elizabeth Richards, daughter of Franklin Thomas Richards and sister of Grant Richards.^[2][3] He was educated at Marlborough College, and read medicine at New College, Oxford.^[4] He qualified as D.M.(Oxon) and M.B.^[1]

Bicknell was the consulting physician for the French Hospital, London.^[5] He practised medicine at 14 Wimpole Street.^[1][6] Bicknell was Chairman of the Food Education Society and a member of the Royal College of Physicians.^[7]

Bicknell co-authored Vitamins in Medicine in 1946 which was positively reviewed by the British Medical Journal as a “very fine work”.^[8] The scholarly volume went through several editions and was positively reviewed by physician Paul S. Rhoads who noted that it was a comprehensive text written with skill and thoroughness.^[9] Bicknell argued for people to eat more dietary fats and meat.^[10] He advocated low-carbohydrate dieting and wrote the introduction for Richard Mackarness‘ book Eat Fat and Grow Slim in 1958.^[11]

Bicknell authored Chemicals in Food and in Farm Produce, in 1960. The book argued that birth defects both mental and physical are caused by alien substances added to foods. It was negatively reviewed in the British Journal of Industrial Medicine as scientifically misleading.^[12] A review in The Quarterly Review of Biology suggested that “while all will agree that we are against poisons in our foods, this volume contributes little to understanding how difficult it is at times to determine what is a poison.”^[13]

In 1947, Bicknell wrote a controversial article “Dying England” in The Medical Press supporting Albert Howard‘s idea that English people are malnourished.^[5][6][14] The article made sensationalist media headlines. Bicknell stated that “England is dying from starvation” and that the average person was only getting 2,100 calories a day when they needed 3,000.^[14] He believed the British population were suffering from prolonged chronic malnutrition. Bicknell ended his polemic with “once we were a great, a prosperous, a happy nation: once we were well fed.”^[14]

Lord Woolton the appointed Minister of Food described Bicknell’s claim as a “monstrous falsehood”.^[14] He checked with the Ministry of Food and contradicted Bicknell’s claim that the average person was getting 2,100 calories a day. The actual figure he stated, was 2,900.^[14] John Strachey commented that Bicknell had failed to take into account important factors such as the amount of food consumed in canteens and restaurants.^[15]