Elmer Verner McCollum:
Elmer Verner McCollum was an American biochemist and nutritionist.
Birth:
March 3, 1879 in Fort Scott, Kansas
Death:
November 15, 1967
Claim to Fame:
McCollum was an American biochemist who made several contributions to the study of vitamins. He showed how rats with a diet lacking fats from butter or eggs failed to develop properly and determined butter and eggs contained a nutrient necessary for health that was soluble in fat. Casimir Funk had discovered another nutrient he called a "vital amine" that was water soluble. McCollum's nutrient was not an amine and shortened the name to vitamin. He also distinguished the difference between the vitamins with letters. Vitamin A was fat soluble, vitamin B was water soluble.
He later discovered vitamin D while investigating cod liver oil and discovered the antirachitic factor of the vitamin. McCollum was also the first to establish a colony of laboratory rats for research in the United States.
