Page 50 - Spring2015

During the swollen joints, large heads and mental health EDWARD AND MAY MELLANBY
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rationing problems. Sir Edward Mellanby (1864-1955) was a

In a 1917 paper, two pediatricians from New highly respected British physician and professor
and food York found that 90 percent of African-American of pharmacology at the University of Sheffield
shortages of children had rickets. A group of these babies in England and a true nutrition pioneer who fol-
World War I, were fed cod liver oil and matured normally. At lowed the experimental method to investigate
the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the diseases using puppies and dogs. In 1918 he found
Hopkins twentieth century, numerous researchers worked that feeding dogs oatmeal caused rickets because
studied on the rickets dilemma. Through experiments the phytic acid content in the oatmeal reduced
margarine and with animals, cod liver oil and sunshine were the availability of calcium. He discovered that the
shown to be keys to solving the puzzle. The condition could be cured with cod liver oil. Dr.
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and found it development of the X-ray by Marie and Pierre Mellanby concluded that rickets was caused by
inferior to Curie led to more understanding of the disease. a dietary factor. He diagnosed rickets by X-ray
butter Marie was a Polish physicist who was the first examination, bone-calcium assay, and histology
woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the only woman of bone, and noted that the gross appearance
because it to win two of them. During WWI she set up the of the dogs’ bones was quite similar to that of
lacked first military field radiology centers. 12 rachitic children. 26,27 The missing element was
Casimir Funk (1884-1967) was the first of a fat-soluble essential dietary factor. He wrote:
vitamins A the vitamin hunters to coin the term “vitamines” “Rickets is a deficiency disease which develops
and D. —vital amines—in 1912 for the unidentified in consequence of the absence of some accessory
substances present in food which could prevent food factor or factors. It therefore seems probable
the diseases scurvy, beriberi and pellagra. Dr. that the cause of rickets is a diminished intake
Funk was a Polish scientist who worked in Paris of an anti-rachitic factor, which is either [Mc-
and also at the Lister Institute during the early Collum’s] fat-soluble factor A, or has a similar
twentieth century. 13 distribution to it.” 26,27
Frederick Gowland Hopkins (1861-1947), a Together with his wife, May (1882-1978),
British biochemist, was an amazingly influential the Mellanbys devoted their careers to studying
researcher in whose lab many young European nutritional deficiency diseases, such as rickets
scientists trained. Biochemistry was not yet rec- and pellagra. During World War II, Dr. Mel-
ognized as a discipline in the early days of his lanby acted as a scientific advisor to the British
career. His best known work, published in 1912, War Cabinet and exerted a strong influence on
debunked Justus von Liebig’s and others’ long- government food policy. 28
standing belief that pure proteins, carbohydrates, Lady May Tweedy was a lecturer at Bedford
fats, and minerals were all that were needed College in London when she met Edward Mel-
for growth. He named those yet unidentified lanby. She was born into a rich merchant family
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mysterious substances, vital in small quantities and studied at Cambridge University. After their
for animal growth and survival, “accessory food marriage the focus of her work turned more
factors,” later renamed vitamins. It was this work towards nutritionally related topics. In 1917 she
that led to his receiving (together with Christiaan noticed that the structure of teeth in dogs with
Eijkman) the 1929 Nobel Prize in Physiology or rickets was altered by a change in the diet. In
Medicine. He also discovered the amino acid 1918 she began dental research for the Medical
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tryptophan in 1901. Research Council and during the 1920s and
During the rationing and food shortages of 1930s she conducted dietary trials with children
World War I, Hopkins studied margarine and in institutions. She published many papers in
found it inferior to butter because it lacked vita- the British Medical Journal and British Dental
mins A and D. In relation to this work, British Journal. Mrs. Mellanby and associate showed
government policy supported vitamin-enriched that even badly formed teeth attacked by caries
margarine in 1926. Hopkins was President of could increase their resistance to caries so that
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the Royal Society from 1930 to 1935. 17 the decay process was slowed and even stopped
by the vitamin D in cod liver oil. 28,29
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