Ernest H. Tipper

Tipper served for many years in the West African Medical Service.[1] He authored The Cradle of the World and Cancer, in 1927.[2] The book was based on his twenty years of medical practice in Nigeria.[3] He examined only six cases of cancer out of an estimated 300,000 patients. The Nigerian diet was low in meat and high in fibre which is opposite to the European diet.[3] Tipper came to the conclusion that constipation and excessive meat-eating were the causes of cancer.[3]

According to Tipper the Béné tribe, who live in the Niger Delta amongst whom he practised for twenty years, are almost free from cancer and live on a semi-vegetarian diet.[4] They live on beans, fruits, seeds, monkey nuts, yams, maize, cayenne peppers, palm oil and occasionally palm wine.[4] Tipper reported that they use 4 oz. of red palm oil daily.[5] They eat eggs and fish, the occasional chicken but rarely any red meat. The drinking of milk is repulsive to the natives. Tipper reported that the men can carry a load of 50 lb on their heads 25 miles a day in tropical heat and their bones and teeth are remarkable.[4] Tipper recommended his readers to abandon meat-eating and dairy, limit flour intake from bread or pastry and substitute butter with palm butter.[4] Tipper's ideas did not receive much notice in medical literature and his book remains obscure.[3] There was a positive review in the British Medical Journal.[1]

Tipper's research is quoted by Sir William Arbuthnot Lane in his book The Prevention of the Diseases Peculiar to Civilization, in 1929.[6]

• The Cradle of the World and Cancer: A Disease of Civilisation (1927)

• J. Ellis Barker
• Hastings Gilford