Henry Prentiss Armsby

Background

Henry Prentiss Armsby was born on September 21, 1853 in Northbridge, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of Lewis and Mary (Prentiss) Armsby.

Education

After primary education in the schools of that town he graduated from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute with the degree of B. S. in 1871. He continued his studies at the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, graduating in 1874 with the degree of Ph. B. In the following year he studied in Germany at the University of Leipzig, devoting special attention to the subject of animal nutrition.

Career

Returning in 1877 he served for two years as chemist in the recently established Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. After two years' service as vice principal and professor of agricultural chemistry in the Storrs (Connecticut) Agricultural School, he became professor of agricultural chemistry in the University of Wisconsin, doing work in the Agricultural Station, of which, in 1886, he was made associate director.

In 1887 he was called to organize the Pennsylvania station, and served as its director for twenty years; from 1890 to 1902 he was also dean of the school of agriculture. In 1907 an Institute of Animal Nutrition was established at the Pennsylvania station to carry on and extend the investigations which he had planned and begun. He was then relieved of his other duties and left free to devote himself to research work as director of the Institute. In this he continued active until near the time of his death. Armsby's study and thought bore its first fruit during his service at the Connecticut station.

He began a translation of Wolff's Feeding of Farm Animals to supply the lack of any adequate work on the subject in English; but he soon realized that many changes and additions would be necessary to adapt it to American conditions and to include the most recent work. He therefore wrote, instead, A Manual of Cattle Feeding, a Treatise on the Laws of Animal Nutrition (1880), making free use of Wolff's book and all other sources of information. This work, long used as a text-book, was the first presentation in English of the results of the studies of animal nutrition which had been made abroad and of the methods by which they had been obtained.

The work had great influence in awakening attention and starting a study of the subject in this country. When he became professor of agricultural chemistry in Wisconsin, Armsby began his life work of research on animal nutrition in connection with agricultural stations, which continued without interruption till his death forty years later. For fourteen years, in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, he carried out a variety of feeding experiments. Of these he wrote, "Fourteen years' experiments in animal feeding and study of experimental results elsewhere confirm the belief of the writer in the urgent need of further investigation into fundamental physiological laws governing animal nutrition. Only by such investigations can we obtain the solid and indispensable basis of rational practise. "

As early as 1890 he suggested his view that the study of the fuel and energy value of foods would furnish a simpler method of comparing food values than the one then in use. In 1907, with the establishment of the Institute referred to above, came his opportunity to develop this thought and to begin the classic research which made him preëminent as a leader in nutrition studies. He and his fellow workers, with the financial help of the United States Bureau of Animal Industry, developed a respiration calorimeter of sufficient size for observation on farm animals. It was an instrument of great precision with the help of which could be determined the energy value of any kind of food consumed, its loss in all the various excreta of the body, and the amount which was utilized for maintenance and production; the "net energy" of the ration.

With it Armsby made the first demonstration of the validity of the principle of the conservation of energy in cattle, as it had been previously made by Rübner on the dog and by Atwater and Benedict on man. Quantitatively the principal function of food is to supply energy, hence knowledge of the relative amounts of energy which can be recovered in various methods of utilization is of prime importance in food conservation. Armsby fixed the net energy of the chief American feeding stuffs and methods of using them in compounding rations.

He studied the efficiency of different types and ages of animals as converters of "waste" into animal foods. He disclosed the great waste that may be involved in the conversion of vegetable into animal foods through the agency of live stock, proving that to feed to farm animals agricultural products which can be used directly for human sustenance involves a great economic loss.

The results of Armsby's work are set forth in the following of his writings: The Principles of Animal Nutrition with Special Reference to the Nutrition of Farm Animals (1903); The Nutrition of Farm Animals (1917); The Conservation of Food Energy (1918); The Animal as a Converter of Matter and Energy (prepared after his death by his collaborator, C. R. Moulton, 1925, in the monograph series of the American Chemical Society).

He was elected a member of the Royal Society of Arts of Great Britain in 1911, foreign member of the Royal Academy of Sweden in 1912 and member of the National Academy of Science in 1920. Valuable in counsel, he held office in the prominent agricultural organizations of this country.

In the fall of 1918 he was sent to Europe by the United States as a member of the Inter-allied Scientific Food Commission, which rendered valuable service during the World War.

Achievements

• Armsby is best known as author of handbooks in the pet's challenge; he introduced the concept of "net energy" in feeding science, such as being part of the total energy of the food. In recognition of his services honorary degrees came to him from the University of Wisconsin, Yale, and the Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Animal as a Converter of Matter and Energy: A Study of the Rôle of Live Stock in Food Production (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Animal as a Converter of Matter and Ener...)

  • The Use Of Energy Values In The Computation Of Rations For Farm Animals

    (This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)

  • The Nutrition of Farm Animals

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Manual of Cattle Feeding. A Treatise on the Laws of Animal Nutrition and the Chemistry of Feeding Stuffs in Their Application to the Feeding of Farm Animals

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • U.S. Department of Agriculture. Bureau of Animal Industry. - Bulletin 101. The Available Energy of Red Clover Hay. Investigations with the Respiration ... State College Agricultural Experiment Station

    (Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part...)

  • The maintenance rations of farm animals

    (This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)

  • The Conservation of Food Energy

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • The Computation of Rations for Farm Animals: -1898

    (Originally published in 1898. This volume from the Cornel...)

  • The principles of animal nutrition :: with special reference to the nutrition of farm animals/

    (Originally published in 1901. This volume from the Cornel...)

  • Animal Nutrition

    (Animal Nutrition. 331 Pages)

Membership

Member of the Royal Society of Arts of Great Britain (1911), member of the Royal Academy of Sweden (1912), member of the National Academy of Science (1920).

Personality

Armsby was a man of slight physique, rather retiring in nature, but with broad interests, generous in his helpfulness to others, tolerant, patient, and persistent in pursuit of his ideals.

Connections

On October 15, 1878 he married Lucy Atwood Harding. They had one son.

Father:

Lewis Armsby

Mother:

Mary (Prentiss) Armsby

Spouse :

Lucy Atwood (Harding) Armsby

Son :

Ernest Harding Armsby