 The Randolph Environmental
Medicine Collection
Library
Dr. Theron G. Randolph was born on a farm in Michigan in 1906 to independent-thinking pioneers. He graduated from Hillsdale College, as did many Randolph's before him. In 1933 he graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, with a residency in Internal Medicine, but had an interest in the new field of allergy. He received the third Fellowship in Allergy at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School under the direction of Francis M. Rackemann.
In 1939 Randolph founded the Allergic Clinic at the Milwaukee Children's Hospital, applying the procedures of Albert H. Rowe, M.D., in diagnosing food allergy. He was later influenced by Arthur Coca, M.D., and Herbert Rinkel, M.D., amongst others. From 1944 through 1950 Randolph was an instructor of Internal Medicine with staff privileges at Northwestern University Medical School while running a private practice on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. In 1947 he documented the first case study of chemical sensitivity.
Randolph , like a detective, typing on his portable typewriter, listened to his patients and typed the answers. He believed that if you listened long enough they would tell you the cause of their illness: What were their symptoms? Were they sick at home, at work, on the road? What did they eat, breathe or feel?
Randolph knew that our bodies are primitive and that most people cannot adapt well to processed foods. Therefore, he advocated eating simple organic food. Our bodies need to roam, to eat off the bush, so he advised the rotation of botanical families of food every five to seven days as well as meat from wild animals. The same foods used repeatedly cause an addiction, maladaptation and chronic illness. He was asked to leave Northwestern, but he stood firm in his belief.
Randolph set up a comprehensive environmental control unit ( CECU) and tested his patients at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, Swedish Covenant Hospital, Lutheran General, Henrotin in Chicago and American International Hospitals in Zion, Ill. From a patient's standpoint, the units were extremely successful. Patients were environmentally isolated: no perfume, no chemicals, no exposure to other foods, and the only testing was on the temperature, pulse and individual reactions. Patients learned to monitor and attend to their bodies. He incorporated other ideas as they came forth, such as Candida from Orin Truss and Detoxification from L. Ron Hubbard. Randolph eagerly searched for the truth in medicine.
Randolph had his following with the Society for Clinical Ecology, which morphed into the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, the Human Ecology Research Foundation and the Human Ecology Study Group in the late 1960s.
Randolph is remembered for his dedication to the welfare of his patients. He gave advocacy for insurance coverage, and for the labeling of food ingredients such as corn products and sugar in peanut butter. Randolph used alkaline salts to alleviate an allergy reaction that was almost always acid. This was all in a time when doctors were concerned only with carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. A search for the many articles he published in journals and the books he wrote tells his amazing story of perseverance and tenacity in a medical world that refused to listen to his truth.
Dr. Randolph passed away in 1995 leaving behind a large archive of unpublished manuscripts, correspondence with peers and person papers are housed at the Francis Countway Library of Medicine and the Oliver Wendell Holmes Fund at Harvard University. Dr. Randolph's personal collection of common-market books are housed and catalogued in the library at Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in Tempe, Ariz.
--Vilma Valentine Kinney For more information on the Randolph Environmental Medicine Collection click on the links below:
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