This is a portrait of Dr. Elmer Verner McCollum, who was born and raised on a farm near Fort Scott, Kansas. He graduated from the University of Kansas in 1903 and earned his doctorate at Yale University in 1906. McCollum was a faculty member in agricultural chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, and, in 1917, Johns Hopkins University recruited McCollum as the first chair and professor in the Department of Chemical Hygiene. He published 150 papers at Johns Hopkins reporting research on tooth decay, vitamins D and E, and the role of trace minerals in nutrition, including aluminum, calcium, cobalt, fluorine, phosphorus, potassium, manganese, sodium, strontium and zinc.
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