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ELMER V. McCOLLUM, AKA “DR. VITAMIN,” LAFAYETTE MENDEL, AND THOMAS OSBORNE

In a commentary on his life, Time magazine stated in 1951 that, “Dr. Vitamin has done more than any other man
to put vitamins back in the nation’s bread and milk, to put fruit on American breakfast tables, fresh vegetables and salad
greens in the daily diet.” Elmer McCollum believed that milk was the greatest of “protective foods” for health. A farm
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boy from Kansas, McCollum became a giant in the field of nutritional biochemistry.
McCollum earned his doctorate from Yale University in 1906 and started work with farm animals at the University of
Wisconsin. When he began his career, few physicians or public health officials in America took the relationship between
diet and disease seriously, and few saw the connection between animal experiments and human health. The principles
of Justus von Liebig, which stated that food provided only three components—fat, protein, carbohydrate—and perhaps
small amounts of a few minerals, was still the mainstream thought on nutrition. When McCollum accepted his position at
the University of Wisconsin, his colleagues at Yale asked him why he wanted to “work in a field which had already been
figured out.” 19
McCollum and his colleagues conducted experiments to determine which food rations would best promote the
growth of cattle and other economically important farm animals. McCollum also pioneered the use of small animals on
purified diets for experimental studies in nutrition, insisting on their unequaled value as test animals. Despite the indignant
reaction of the School of Hygiene and Public Health at the U of W to the presence of lab “vermin,” he established the
nation's first colony of white rats for nutritional research, which led to the isolation of the first known fat-soluble vitamins
between 1912 and 1915, later called vitamins A and D, and water-soluble vitamin B. McCollum confided to a colleague
that his rat colony was the key to all his successes in nutritional science, which were many. 20
Scientists made note of deficiency-disease symptoms in humans. Using lab rats and purified diets they induced
these diseases in small animals and birds, and then figured out how to cure them with dietary substances. But rats were
and remained the major “workhorses” in nutrition science. After this initial work was completed and verified by various
laboratories, the next step was to isolate the substance that was vital to prevent a particular disease.
At Yale University in 1913, also using rats for experimental research, Layfayette Mendel (1872-1935) and Thomas B.
Osborne (1859-1929) co-discovered vitamin A in butter independently of E.V. McCollum. They also found that lack of
vitamin A led to the development of xerophthalmia, an eye condition that caused blindness. They also established the
essential amino acids and in 1910 discovered vitamin B. Dr. McCollum had worked with Drs. Osborne and Mendel
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while studying at Yale. It was Mendel who helped him obtain his first position at the University of Wisconsin.
McCollum and his lab assistant Marguerite Davis shortened the name "vitamines" to "vitamins" and in 1916 proposed
an alphabetical designation preceded by a notation of the solubility of the factor, thus fat-soluble A and water-soluble B.
This was the beginning of the common nomenclature for vitamins. 22
In 1917 Johns Hopkins University recruited Dr. McCollum as the first chair and professor in its newly established
department of chemical hygiene where he remained until retirement. While at Johns Hopkins he studied the nutritional
status of children in orphanages and schools and gave many public lectures on nutrition. In addition to Marguerite Davis,
his research colleagues included Nina Simmonds and J. Ernestine Becker.
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Some of his most important research explored the relationship of diet, sunshine and rickets by experiments with
rats. This research demonstrated the role of “a vitamin whose specific property is to regulate the metabolism of bones”
(later called vitamin D) in preventing childhood rickets and led to the widespread supplementation of diets with vitamin
D-rich cod liver oil.
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In 1920 McCollum's team found that the fat-soluble factor A in butterfat could be destroyed by heating and aeration.
Butterfat so treated no longer had growth-promoting activity; rats fed the treated butterfat developed xerophthalmia
and died within 50 days. But the key experiment was performed by McCollum and his co-workers in 1922, when they
observed that heated and oxidized cod-liver oil could not prevent xerophthalmia but could cure rickets in rats. “This
shows that oxidation destroys fat-soluble A without destroying another substance which plays an important role in bone
growth.” 24
McCollum’s belief that many other diseases of unknown origin, including mental illnesses, could be traced to nutritional
deficiencies motivated his research into the effects of other inorganic elements including aluminum, boron, calcium, cobalt,
potassium, phosphorus, fluorine, magnesium, manganese, iron, zinc and sodium. He published one hundred papers at
Johns Hopkins, reporting his research on tooth decay, vitamins D and E, and the role of minerals. He wrote many books
including his classic textbook, The Newer Knowledge of Nutrition, which passed through multiple editions. 24
Dr. McCollum died on November 15, 1967, at the age of eighty-eight. Shortly before his death, he remarked: "I have
had an exceptionally pleasant life and am thankful." His papers are housed at Johns Hopkins University. 18

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