May 27th
Born 27 May 1901; died 27 Jul 1962 at age 61.
American biochemist who identified that nicotinic acid was a vitamin which when absent from diet resulted in the disease pellegra. In 1937, working with dogs having the canine equivalent of pellegra (blacktongue), he showed that giving a dog 30 milligrams of nicotinic acid resulted in substantial improvement. Continuing doses to correct the diet deficiency led to complete recovery. It worked as well in humans. Niacin is one of the B vitamins. His later work was on the trace minerals such as zinc and cobalt which are essential to life as component parts of enzymes.
