Mendel, Lafayette

Thomas B. Osborne and Lafayette B. Mendel worked together for nearly twenty years to unravel the chemical and physiological properties of proteins. In their efforts to supply ever more sophisticated diets, i.e., diets made up of pure chemical proteins, minerals, etc., they discovered that different proteins were markedly different in their ability to promote growth or even to maintain animals at contant body weight. 

Woods Hutchinson declined to apologize for mounting yet another attack on the uric acid theory because, he warned, "if we do not take it, it will take us." (43) The fact that other medical celebrities, including Lafayette Mendel, (44) Lewellys Barker, (45) and J. J. R. Macleod, (46) took the time to second... 

Though such explanations have some validity, we have provided evidence that the role of mentor was another important factor.10 Margaret Rossiter has shown that this factor played a role in the high number of women in the biochemistry department of Yale University between 1896 and 1935. The Yale women biochemists were all former students of Lafayette Mendel.11 In fact, of the 124 students who completed doctoral degrees with Mendel, 48 were women, and Rossiter concluded that the personality and supportiveness of Mendel were major factors in this exceptional percentage. 

Fig. B-44. Which breakfast is better Four male rats from the same litter. The two on the left had a breakfast f buttered toast and coffee. The others had oatmeal and milk. This advertisement, which was used in the early 1900s, was based on an experiment conducted by Thomas B. Osborne, of the Conneaicut Agricultural Experiment Station, and LaFayette B. Mendel, of Yale University, who, in 1911, formed a brilliant partnership and pioneered in protein, mineral, and vitamin studies. (Courtesy, The Conneaicut Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven)...

Fig. P-81. Thomas B. Osborne (left) and Lafayette B. Mendel (right) who pioneered in studies of protein quality. (Courtesy, The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven, Conn.)... 

In 1913, vitamin A was discovered by Elmer V. McCollum and Marguerite Davis of the University of Wisconsin, and by Thomas 5. Osborne and Lafayette B. Mendel of the Connecticut Experiment Station. Working independently, each research team demonstrated the presence of an essential dietary substance in fatty foods. McCollum and Davis found it in butter-fat and egg yolks Osborne and Mendel discovered it in cod liver oil. These researchers believed that only one factor, which they called fat-soluble A, was needed to supplement purified diets. They described the condition as the "type of nutritive deficiency exemplified in the form of an infectious eye disease prevalent in animals inappropriately fed." In 1915, McCollum and Davis also noted that a deficiency of fat-soluble A caused night blindness. (It is noteworthy that Miss Marguerite Davis, a young biologist who had just obtained her bachelor s degree from the University of California, volunteered to do the rat work for McCollum without salary.)... 

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