Elmer McCollum

Elmer McCollum
ForMemRS[1]
McCollum at the University of Wisconsin (before 1917)
Born
Elmer Verner McCollum

(1879-03-03)March 3, 1879[1]
Redfield, Kansas, United States
DiedNovember 15, 1967(1967-11-15) (aged 88)
Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Alma materUniversity of Kansas
Yale University Ph.D.
Known for
  • Discovering Vitamin A, Vitamin B and Vitamin D
  • Discovering the influence of diet on health
  • With Cornelia Kennedy, devising the vitamin naming system
  • Discovered the importance of trace metals in diet
AwardsHoward N. Potts Medal (1921)
Scientific career
FieldsBiochemistry
InstitutionsUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison Agricultural Experiment Station, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Doctoral advisorHenry Lord Wheeler, Treat B. Johnson
Doctoral studentsMarguerite Davis, Helen T. Parsons, Harry Steenbock

Elmer Verner McCollum (March 3, 1879 – November 15, 1967) was an American biochemist known for his work on the influence of diet on health.[2][3] McCollum is also remembered for starting the first rat colony in the United States to be used for nutrition research. His reputation has suffered from posthumous controversy. Time magazine called him Dr. Vitamin.[4] His rule was, "Eat what you want after you have eaten what you should."[5]

Living at a time when vitamins were unknown, he asked and tried to answer the questions, "How many dietary essentials are there, and what are they?"[3] He and Marguerite Davis discovered the first vitamin, named A, in 1913. McCollum also helped to discover vitamin B and vitamin D and worked out the effect of trace elements in the diet.

As a worker in Wisconsin and later at Johns Hopkins, McCollum acted partly at the request of the dairy industry. When he said that milk was "the greatest of all protective foods", milk consumption in the United States doubled between 1918 and 1928.[6] McCollum also promoted leafy greens, which had no industry advocates.[7][8]

McCollum wrote in his 1918 medical textbook (which initially had the title of The Newer Knowledge of Nutrition) that lacto vegetarianism is, "when the diet is properly planned, the most highly satisfactory plan which can be adopted in the nutrition of man".[9]

  1. ^ a b Chick, 1969.
  2. ^ Mayer, J. (1982). "The impact of Elmer Verner McCollum on national and global nutritional problems". Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science. 85 (3): 142–151. doi:10.2307/3628332. JSTOR 3628332. PMID 6753305.
  3. ^ a b Kruse, 1961.
  4. ^ "Medicine: Dr. Vitamin". Time. Time Inc. September 24, 1951. Retrieved June 11, 2016.
  5. ^ "Elmer V. McCollum, PhD". Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Retrieved June 11, 2016.
  6. ^ Way, Wendy (2013). A New Idea Each Morning. Australian National University E Press. ISBN 978-1-922144-11-9. Retrieved June 11, 2016.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Prengaman was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ McCollum, E. V. (November 1917). "Some Essentials to a Safe Diet". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 74: 95–102. doi:10.1177/000271621707400114. JSTOR 1014092. S2CID 144598746.
  9. ^ McCollum, Elmer Verner (1918). The Newer Knowledge of Nutrition. Macmillan Company. p. 52.