McCollum, Elmer Verner 1879-1967

BIOCHEMIST

Rickets.

Once a widespread condition commonly found in young children, rickets has essentially been eradicated due to the pioneering efforts of Elmer McCollum, an American biochemist who dedicated his life to the study of the relationship between diet and health. He began his work in the field of biochemistry at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station during his doctoral training in organic chemistry at Yale University. He earned his Ph.D. in 1907 and proceeded to develop the first white rat colony in the United States created to study the effects of nutrition. At the time he was working with the Wisconsin College of Agriculture, and although assigned to study the food and excrement of cattle, McCollum found that the use of rats circumvented the complicated methodology required when studying larger animals.

Existence of Vitamins.

McCollum's study of rats led to the realization that a...

[The entire page is 627 words long]

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