McCollum, Elmer Verner

McCollum, Elmer Verner

(1879–1967) organic chemist; born near Fort Scott, Kans. He started the first white rat colony in the U.S.A., devoted to studying nutrition (ca. 1907). On the basis of this work, he demonstrated the existence of vitamins A and B (reported 1915). In 1917 he became a biochemist at Johns Hopkins, where he also did work on vitamin D.