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 fat-deficient diet resulted in growth retardation which could be reversed by feeding "an extract of egg or butter." By 1915 McCollum had identified the substances that were found necessary for normal growth and named them vitamins A and B. It was during these initial experiments that McCollum also developed the letter system of naming vitamins. The term originated in 1906 when Casimir Funk, a colleague of Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, professor of biochemistry at Cambridge University, proposed that substances necessary for health be called vitamins.

Vitamin D Found to Prevent Rickets

In 1922 McCollum began the research for which he is best known. Through his study of vitamins and nutrition, McCollum was able to isolate and identify vitamin D. This was a major breakthrough in the treatment of rickets, a bone disease caused by a lack of vitamin D that results in the improper and incomplete absorption of calcium into a child's bones. McCollum also created the "line test" for measuring vitamin D in foods.

A Balanced Diet

McCollum's study of nutrition is a basis for many of today's nutritional standards. In 1923 American Magazine sought McCollum's advice about the basics of good nutrition. In the resulting article McCollum stated that a satisfactory diet required several essentials. First, he recommended the generous use of dairy products. Second, McCollum suggested that fruits and the leafy parts of vegetables contained dietary properties that could not be found in other foods or in root vegetables. Finally, he stressed that a safe rule of thumb was never to eat meat more than once a day and always avoid overeating. These principles have repeatedly been proven to be keys of healthy living.

A Noteworthy Career

McCollum's valuable contributions in the field of nutrition were recognized throughout his career. He was a professor of agricultural chemistry at the University of Wisconsin and an emeritus professor of biochemistry at Johns Hopkins University, where the McCollum-Pratt Institute was created in his honor. McCollum also published The Newer Knowledge of Nutrition in 1918 which greatly influenced dietitians of the time. The identification of vitamins A, B, and D, the essential eradication of rickets, the vitamin nomenclature as used today, and general knowledge of how diet affects human health can all be attributed to the work of Elmer McCollum.