Background
Stephen Babcock was born on October 23, 1843, in Bridgewater, New York, to Pelig and Mary Scott Babcock who were Puritans.
Stephen Babcock, American agricultural chemist. In 1890, Babcock demonstrated a test to show the amount of butterfat in milk. He discovered that by adding acid to warm milk, fat is released as an oil, and that the fat can then be separated easily by spinning the solution in a centrifuge. Simple and reliable, the Babcock Test helped fix standards for municipal milk inspection and set fair milk prices according to quality grading, as the market value of milk depends on its butterfat content; it is still used today to test milk quality.
Tufts University, Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States
Babcock graduated from Tufts University in 1866.
The University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany
Babcock received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Göttingen, Germany, in 1879.
Stephen Babcock, American agricultural chemist. In 1890, Babcock demonstrated a test to show the amount of butterfat in milk. He discovered that by adding acid to warm milk, fat is released as an oil, and that the fat can then be separated easily by spinning the solution in a centrifuge. Simple and reliable, the Babcock Test helped fix standards for municipal milk inspection and set fair milk prices according to quality grading, as the market value of milk depends on its butterfat content; it is still used today to test milk quality.
Dr. Stephen Babcock with an electric centrifuge butterfat tester.
Stephen Babcock, American agricultural chemist.
Stephen Moulton Babcock was an agricultural chemist. He is best known for his Babcock test in determining dairy butterfat in milk processing.
Professor Stephen Babcock's milk test discovery won grand prizes at the Paris and St. Louis expositions.
Professor Stephen Babcock with his centrifuge machine. Photo courtesy of UW Digital Archives.
Studio portrait in front of a painted backdrop of group of nine men, identified on the reverse as associates of the Geneva, New York Experiment Station. Stephen Moulton Babcock, with beard, sits in the center on the arm of a chair. Babcock was at Cornell's New York State Agricultural Experiment Station from 1881 until 1888, when he joined the Dairy Department at the University of Wisconsin. Creation Date: 1888.
chemist nutritionist scientist
Stephen Babcock was born on October 23, 1843, in Bridgewater, New York, to Pelig and Mary Scott Babcock who were Puritans.
After graduating from Tufts University in 1866, however, he was soon taking chemistry courses at Cornell University, and in 1875 was made an instructor in the subject. In 1877 Babcock began graduate studies at the University of Göttingen under Hans Hübner, receiving the Ph.D. in 1879.
Stephen Babcock was a professor of agricultural chemistry at the University of Wisconsin from 1887 to 1913 (emeritus thereafter), where most of his discoveries were made. He helped direct the Wisconsin state experimental station from 1901 to 1913.
Babcock's central interest was the chemical analysis of milk; but in 1890 he succumbed to pressure from the dairy industry and his Wisconsin colleagues to take an interest in practical, commercial matters. After studying the previous work on butterfat testing, he favored using a chemical agent to liberate the fat globules from the casein content of milk, followed by centrifugal action to complete the milk separation; he settled on sulfuric acid as the agent. The Babcock test, which he developed in 1890, was a total success; simple and reliable, it not only tested milk quality but also made it possible to evaluate cattle, fix standards for municipal milk inspection, and set fair milk prices according to quality grading, which discouraged further watering or skimming of milk by farmers. Despite opposition, the test was widely accepted by 1892. Babcock improved it over the years, refining the test as late as 1910. In view of the vast increase in milk output in the United States (ninefold growth between 1870 and 1900), Babcock's test was equaled as a technical advance in dairying only by the centrifugal cream separator. He refused a patent on the test, although it saved millions of dollars for American dairymen by providing data to improve stockbreeding and by cutting butterfat loss in cream separation.
Babcock worked from 1896 on the biochemistry of casein and its influence on cheese making. In 1897 the enzyme galactase was isolated, to which the decomposition of protein in curd was traced. In 1900 the coordinate influence of another enzyme, pepsin, was discovered and in 1903 a cold-curing process for cheese perfected. Babcock also helped prepare the way for recognition of vitamin A by studying "hidden hunger" in animals.
A few months before his death, on July 2, 1931, the New York Legislature honored Babcock with a bill to preserve his birthplace, the farm at Babcock Hill, Bridgewater.
The test, which bears his name, was an outgrowth of necessity, as is so often the case with inventions. Dairying was becoming an important industry in Wisconsin and its future depended on an accurate and easy method to determine the intrinsic value of milk. When presented in 1890, the test brought international recognition to the University of Wisconsin.
Away from his laboratory in the biochemistry department of the UW's college of agriculture, Babcock - affectionately known as "the laughing saint of science" - could be found in the grandstands with his bag of peanuts or popcorn watching football or baseball. In his Lake Street home, he refused to install a telephone, claiming it was too much bother to answer the contraption. He did, however, adopt the automobile and enjoyed touring southern Wisconsin before his death in 1931 at age 87.
Interestingly, Babcock felt that he should derive no personal gain from his testing device, his most famous invention, and no patent was taken out. He also refused to take a cent for anything else he did that might benefit humanity. Fame came to Babcock because he could not avoid it. Not a fluent speaker, he always tried to get out of making speeches.
Moulton Babcock married May Crandall in 1896.