Not everyone in Alberta is a dink. A pig-farmer in Lethbridge has invented a pill, derived from pigfeed, that is fantastically effective in fighting clinical depression without nasty side-effects.
Distraught and feeling hopeless, Mr. Stephan told his friend David Hardy about his predicament. Mr. Hardy, who once sold livestock products, said the children's behaviour sounded familiar to him. He had seen it in pigs.
"My thoughts just went to the only experience I had, and that was nutrition in livestock," says Mr. Hardy, who has a degree in biology.
"I connected in my mind a little bit of the aggressiveness in pigs in ear-and-tail-biting syndrome to what he was describing in his son — just off-the-wall violent behaviour that seemed so unusual compared with how he was earlier in his life."
For close to a century, agricultural scientists have done research on the impact of nutrients on animal behaviour. Aggressive behaviour is routinely treated with food supplements. Oddly, this body of knowledge has not made its way into human medicine. Without a blueprint to guide them, Mr. Hardy and Mr. Stephan concocted a mixture of vitamins and minerals.
The effect on Joseph and Autumn was staggering.
