Background

Ethnicity: McCollum's ancestors immigrated to the United States from Scotland in 1763.

McCollum was born on March 3, 1879, in Fort Scott, Kansas, the son of Cornelius Armstrong McCollum and Martha Catherine Kidwell McCollum. His parents had little education but became relatively well-off by local standards. He had one brother, Burton, and three sisters.

Education

McCollum received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas in 1903 and completed his doctorate at Yale University in 1906.

Career

Although his primary field was organic chemistry, circumstances led McCollum to work for a period of time under Thomas B. Osborne at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station where he acquired a strong interest in what was then called agricultural chemistry (biochemistry). In 1907 he was employed by the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station to conduct chemical analyses on the food and excreta of dairy cattle, part of an experiment inaugurated a year earlier to determine the effect of various cereal grains upon the health and reproductive capacity of cattle. McCollum, despairing of the long and tedious procedures entailed in these of such large animals, instituted a study which resulted in his setting up the albino rat colony. Under the most adverse conditions, including the hostility of the dean of the College of Agriculture, he conducted experimental work of such a nature that he was able to report in 1913 that rats fed on a diet deficient in certain fats resumed normal growth when fed "the ether extract of egg or of butter." Furthermore, he was able to transfer this "growth-promoting factor" to otherwise nutritionally inert fat or oil which then exhibited growth-promoting activity in rats.

Within two years McCollum also demonstrated that certain water-soluble substances were necessary for normal health in rats, and he consequently named these substances, present in foods in relatively small quantities, "fat-soluble A" and "water-soluble B," thus initiating the alphabetical nomenclature for vitamins. He at first thought that there existed one fat-soluble A and one water-soluble B, but further work in his laboratory and at other institutions soon indicated that there were numerous chemical entities involved.

In 1917 McCollum left Wisconsin to become the first biochemist of the School of Hygiene and Public Health of Johns Hopkins University, where he continued his studies of the vitamins and where, in collaboration with members of the medical school, he aided in the elucidation of what is now known as vitamin D (the antirachitic factor). Another outcome of McCollum’s work both at Wisconsin and at Johns Hopkins was the development of the use of the living animal as an analytical tool. As far as nutrition was concerned, the only means by which the presence of curative or preventive substances could be detected was the animal feeding experiment, that is, biological analysis.

Because of his outstanding contributions in the field of nutrition, McCollum received many awards and he was invited to serve as a member of numerous national and international organizations devoted to public health. He was involved with the World Health Organization and the Nutrition Board of the National Research Council, as well as being an American fellow of the Royal Society of London.

Achievements

• McCollum is best remembered for originating the first white rat colony in the United States devoted solely to the purpose of experimentation in nutrition. The outcome of this endeavor was his personal discovery and co-discovery of a number of the vitamins. Although he worked with other aspects of nutrition, the major portion of his professional career was devoted to vitamins and other trace nutrients.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A Text-Book of Organic Chemistry for Students of Medicine and Biology 1917
  • The Newer Knowledge of Nutrition: The Use of Food for the Preservation of Vitality and Health 1918
  • A History Of Nutrition: The Sequence Of Ideas In Nutrition Investigations 1957

Views

McCollum opposed Casimir Funk's 1912 name vitamines (from vital amines). They thought the prefix "vita" gave the substance too much importance, and that the ending "amine" means something specific in organic chemistry, but they only had scant evidence of one amino group. Like his predecessors at Wisconsin, McCollum was always mindful of the dairy industry. At his suggestion, the National Dairy Council was formed in 1915. While at Johns Hopkins, he was the leader of the National Dairy Products Corporation research laboratory and served as a consultant there, for one hour per day and one evening per week.

Membership

• National Academy of Sciences , United States

  1920

• American Academy of Dental Medicine , United States

Personality

McCollum’s career indicates he was a man of tenacious character who, even after his retirement in the early 1940s, retained an active interest in nutrition and related health fields, evidenced by the fact that he published his book A History of Nutrition in 1957, and maintained an influence upon the science he had pioneered many years before.

Interests

• McCollum’s interests extended beyond the laboratory to the public domain via lectures, magazine articles, and books.

Connections

In 1907 McCollum married Constance Carruth, whom he had known in Lawrence. They had five children: Donald, Jean, Margaret, Kathleen, and Elsbeth. The two divorced later in life. When McCollum was living in Baltimore, in 1945, he married J. Ernestine Becker, a dietitian, and co-author of one of his books.

Father:

Cornelius Armstrong McCollum

Mother:

Martha Catherine Kidwell McCollum

ex-spouse:

Constance Carruth

Son:

Donald McCollum

Daughter:

Jean McCollum

Daughter:

Margaret McCollum

Daughter:

Kathleen McCollum

Daughter:

Elsbeth McCollum

Brother:

Burton McCollum

colleague:

Marguerite Davis

Davis was an American biochemist, co-discoverer of vitamins A and B with Elmer Verner McCollum in 1913.

References

• From Kansas Farm Boy to Scientist The autobiography of Elmer Verner McCollum, a pioneer in vitamin research.
  1964
• Dictionary of Scientific Biography Volume 7
  1973