- Samuel Cate Prescott
Infobox_Scientist
name = Samuel Cate Prescott
birth_date = birth date|1872|4|5|mf=y
birth_place =South Hampton, New Hampshire ,United States of America
death_date = death date and age|1962|3|19|1872|4|5|mf=y
death_place =Cambridge, Massachusetts ,United States of America
residence = USA
citizenship = USA
field =Food science ,microbiology
work_institution =Massachusetts Institute of Technology
alma_mater = Massachusetts Institute of Technology
doctoral_advisor =William Thompson Sedgwick (see footnote)
doctoral_students =Philip K. Bates ,Samuel A. Goldblith ,Bernard E. Proctor
known_for =Time -temperature studies incanning ,food microbiology , first president of theInstitute of Food Technologists (IFT) (1939-41)
prizes = IFTNicholas Appert Award - 1943, IFT Stephen M. Babcock Award - 1950, Honorary member ofPhi Tau Sigma - 1953.
footnotes = Prescott earned his S.B. in chemistry at MIT in 1894 and did not go up any further in his studies.Samuel Cate Prescott (
April 5 1872 –March 19 1962 ) was an American food scientist and microbiologist who was involved in the development offood safety ,food science ,public health , andindustrial microbiology .Early life
Prescott was born in
South Hampton, New Hampshire , the younger of two children. An older sister, Grace, later became a teacher in South Hampton, located near theAmesbury, Massachusetts area, located across the New Hampshire-Massachusetts state line. His formal education was in an ungraded schoolhouse in New Hampshire. During his fifteenth year, Prescott served as a "rod man" on asurveying crew to lay out the state line between eastern New Hampshire and Massachusetts.In 1888, he enrolled at the
Sanborn Seminary inKingston, New Hampshire , becoming a member of the first graduating class in 1890 which consisted of three girls and two boys. The seminary was a preparatory school for theMassachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, then known as Boston Tech). It was there he metAllyne L. Merrill , an 1885 MIT graduate who helped Prescott enroll there in the fall of 1890. [Goldblith, S. A. (1993). "Pioneers in Food Science, Volume 1: Samuel Cate Prescott - M.I.T. Dean and Pioneer Food Technologist." Trumball, CT: Food & Nutrition Press. pp. 1-7.]tudent days at MIT
Majoring in
chemistry at MIT, Prescott had courses that had instructors such asJames Mason Crafts inorganic chemistry ,Ellen Swallow Richards in sanitary chemistry, andWilliam Thompson Sedgwick inbacteriology . Sedgwick would later become the first president of theSociety of American Bacteriologists (SAB) in 1899-1901 (The SAB became theAmerican Society for Microbiology in December 1960.).Prescott graduated with a
S.B. degree in chemistry in 1894 after he wrote his senior research thesis entitled "Salt as Nutrients for Bacteria". The thesis was 37 pages long and handwritten. With the help of Sedgwick, chair of theBiology department at MIT, Prescott found his first position as an Assistant Chemist and Biologist at thewastewater treatment facility inWorcester, Massachusetts where he worked for the rest of 1894 and part of 1895. [Goldblith. pp. 9-15.]Return to MIT and canning research
In 1895, Prescott returned to MIT as an assistant to Sedgwick in the biology department and was promoted to instructor in 1896. During that time,
William Lyman Underwood of theWilliam Underwood Company , afood company founded in 1822 inBoston, Massachusetts , approached Sedgwick about product losses in his canned food product with swells and exploded cans despite the newest retort technology available. The only foreseeable option was to investigate for which Sedgwick detailed Prescott's assignment.From late 1895 to late 1896, Prescott and Underwood worked on the problem every afternoon, specifically on canned
clams , and discovered that the clams contained some heat-resistant bacterial spores that were able to survive the processing. Eventually, both men were able to determine that the clam's living environment also determined that if the bacteria was available and further found that the organisms could be killed if processed at 250 oF (121 oC) for ten minutes in a retort. [Goldblith. pp. 21-22.]The processing time-temperature studies also led to research of processing time-temperature studies of canned
lobster ,sardines ,peas ,tomatoes , corn, andspinach . Prescott and Underwood's work was first published in late 1896 with follow-up papers done from 1897 to 1926 [Goldblith. pp. 22-28.] [Powers, J.J. "The Food Industry Contribution: Preeminence in Science and in Application." "A Century of Food Science." (2000). Institute of Food Technologists: Chicago. pp. 17-18.] This research, though important to the growth offood technology , "was never patented." [Goldblith. p. 24.] It would also pave the way forthermal death time research that was pioneered by Bigelow andC. Olin Ball from 1921 to 1936. [Powers. p. 17.]MIT teaching and research
While Prescott was doing his canning research, he also taught biology at MIT. This included courses in
bacteriology , general biology,botany ,genetics . He also rose through the ranks at MIT, moving to assistantprofessor in 1903 and associate professor in 1909 and even traveled throughEurope during 1900, mainlyBelgium ,Germany ,Denmark ,Switzerland , andFrance , to assist in research per Sedgwick's request. Prescott published papers onwater bacteriology,milk bacteriology, andpublic health bacteriology from 1895 to 1910. [Goldblith. pp. 17-20, 33-43.]His research would continue from 1910 to 1921 into
banana fungal disease inCosta Rica in 1917 and 1918 that would lead to a disease-resistant banana. [Goldblith. pp.53-4.] DuringWorld War I , Prescott also was commissioned aUnited States Army Major in the Sanitary Commission of the Army medical department regarding thedehydration of food supplied to soldiers on the front line during the war. Serving from 1917 to 1919, Prescott received an honorable discharge and would actively serve in theUnited States Army Reserve until 1936 where he retired at the rank of Colonel. [Goldblith. pp.54-5.] [Dunn, C.G. (1962). "Samuel Cate Prescott: 1872-1962." "Journal of Bacteriology." 83(6):1167.]Rise to department head and Dean of Science at MIT
Prescott assumed the role of acting head of the Department of Biology and Public Health at MIT upon Sedgwick's death on
January 25 1921 and would be named department head onMay 18 1922 . Prescott as department chair would change the focus from sanitary biology to industrial biology content with focus more on food technology, including recruiting morebiochemistry andphysiology faculty from 1922 and in later careers.Student recruitment would also increase, including the recruitment of future food scientists such as
Philip K. Bates ,Samuel A. Goldblith , andBernard E. Proctor from the 1920s until 1940. When MIT underwent a reorganization following PresidentSamuel Wesley Stratton 's death in 1931, the new presidentKarl Taylor Compton selected Prescott as the first dean of MIT's School of Science the following year, a role Prescott would serve until his retirement in 1942; in the meantime, he would continue his role as head of the Biology and Public Health Departments, including continuing his food technology research. [Goldblith. pp. 56-60, 77-78.]Continuation of food technology research
Even while he was busy as department head and dean, Prescott continued working on research beneficial to the growth of food technology from 1921 to 1942. This would include research into
coffee from 1923 to 1937 and would include futureNobel Laureate Robert Burns Woodward when Woodward was a graduate student at MIT. [Goldblith. pp. 67-76.] He also worked on research incitric acid fermentation, refrigerated andfrozen foods , and was instrumental in starting a newscientific journal named "Food Research " in 1936 ("Journal of Food Science " since 1961). [Goldblith. pp. 86-7.] By this time, the need for a conference dealing with the growth of food technology and a possible society to be created was in process.Formation of the Institute of Food Technologists
As food technology grew from the individual family farm to the factory level, including the
slaughterhouse for meat andpoultry processing, thecannery for canned foods, andbaker ies for bread as examples, the need to have personnel trained for the food industries. Literature such asUpton Sinclair 's "The Jungle " in 1906 about slaughterhouse operations would be a factor in the establishment of theFood and Drug Administration (FDA ) later that year.The
United States Department of Agriculture was also interested in food technology and research was also being done at agricultural colleges in theUnited States , including MIT, theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison , and theUniversity of California, Berkeley . [Goldblith. pp. 99-100.]By 1935, both Prescott and Proctor (now on the MIT faculty) decided that it was time to hold an international conference regarding this. [Goldblith. p. 101.] A detailed proposal was presented to MIT President Compton in 1936 was presented with $1500 of financial aid from MIT for a meeting to be held from
June 30 -July 2 1937 with Compton asking how many people would be in attendance at this meeting. Prescott replied with "fifty or sixty people." 500 people actually attended the event. [Ibid.]This meeting proved so successful that in early 1938 that a second conference would be held in 1939. Initially led by
George J. Hucker of theNew York State Agricultural Experiment Station (part ofCornell University ) inGeneva, New York , a small group meeting was held onAugust 5 , 1938 on forming an organization with an expanded group meeting inNew York City onJanuary 16 ,1939 to further discuss this. [Goldblith. p. 102.] The second conference was held at MITJune 29 toJuly 1 1939 with Proctor as conference chair. 600 people attended this event.At the final session, the chairman of the session
Fred C. Blanck of the United States Department of Agriculture, proposed that an organization be established as theInstitute of Food Technologists . This was approved unanimously. Its first officers were Prescott as President,Roy C. Newton ofSwift & Company inChicago, Illinois as Vice President, and Hucker as Secretary-Treasurer. [Ibid] By 1949, IFT had 3,000 members. Prescott was chosen as the first president because of his previous positions as presidents of two other professional organizations: theSociety of American Bacteriologists in 1919 and theAmerican Public Health Association in 1927-8 [Goldblith. p. 127.]Post-MIT career
Following his 1942 retirement, Prescott remained a busy man even becoming acting dean during 1944 when the current dean
George Russell Harrison , a physicist, was called on assignment toAustralia . [Goldblith. p. 107.] He also assisted duringWorld War II in a ration survey per the United States Army, monitoring its history from 1789 to 1912 in three different time periods as part of theU.S. Army Quartermaster Corps , and even worked as a special consultant to the quartermaster corps regarding food. [Goldblith. p. 108.] Prescott also wrote about the early history of MIT in a book published by the MIT Press inCambridge, Massachusetts in 1954 entitled "When M.I.T. was "Boston Tech" (1861-1916)." [Goldblith. pp.108-112, 182.] He also remained active in IFT, both on the national level and in the [http://www.neift.org Northeast Section] (Maine , Massachusetts, New Hampshire,Rhode Island , andVermont ) until his death in 1962. [Goldblith. p. 114.]Death and legacy
Prescott died on
March 19 1962 shortly after suffering astroke at 89. [Goldblith. p. 130.] Prior to his death in 1961, the Underwood Canning Company dedicated a newlaboratory wing of their facility in honor of Prescott and Underwood. [Goldblith. p. 126.] After Prescott's 1962 passing, the Underwood company established the Underwood Prescott Memorial Lectureship that ran until 1982 when the Underwood Company was sold. [Goldblith. pp. 128, 171-3.]The Institute of Food Technologists established the
Samuel Cate Prescott Award in 1964 to honor young researchers in food science and technology for those who are under 36 years of age or who are a maximum ten years after earning their highest degree whichever is later. An Underwood Professorship was established in 1969 with an Underwood-Prescott Professorship followed up in 1972. [Goldblith. pp. 128, 130.] Three MIT faculty have held this professorship since it inception:Samuel A. Goldblith ,Gerald N. Wogan , and since 1996,Steven R. Tannenbaum . [Goldblith. p. 130.] [ [http://web.mit.edu/annualreports/pres97/06.06.html MIT Reports to the President Department of Toxicology for 1996-7] - Accessed October 18, 2006.]Honors and awards
All honors are at this reference [Goldblith. pp. 127-8.] unless noted.
*MIT Class of 1894 Secretary [Goldblith. p. 113.]
*Fellow -American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Year not listed)
*President - Society of American Batceriologists (1919) (now American Society for Microbiology). Also was charter member [Dunn. p.1167.]
*President - Institute of Food Technologists (1939-41). Charter member and the only person to every serve as President more than one year.
*IFTNicholas Appert Award (1943)
*IFT Stephen M. Babcock Award (1951) [ [http://members.ift.org/IFT/Awards/AchievmentAwards/AwardWinners/pastawardwinners.htm IFT Babcock-Hart (formerly Stephen M. Babcock) Award winners] - Accessed October 18, 2006.]
*Samuel Cate Prescott Award created (1964) [ [http://members.ift.org/IFT/Awards/AchievmentAwards/AwardWinners/pastawardwinners.htm IFT Prescott Award winners] - Accessed October 18, 2006.]
*HonoraryScD -Bates College (1923)
*Honorary ScD -Lehigh University (1947)
*Honorary Charter Member ofPhi Tau Sigma , the honorary society of food science (1953).Personal life
Prescott married Alice Chase (1884-1958) in June 1910 and remained married until her 1958 death. [Goldblith pp. 43, 115.] They had three children, Robert Sedgwick Prescott (1911-?), Samuel Chase Prescott (1912-1976), and Eleanor Prescott Clemence (1914-?) [Goldblith. p. 46.] [Dunn. p. 1167] He also was an active writer both of technical
textbooks , [Ibid.] and ofpoetry . [Goldblith. pp. 119-23.] Prescott even wrote an award-winning essay for the [http://www.mass.gov/rmv Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles] on "Can Children Be Saved from Death by Motor Cars" [Goldblith p. 64.] in the late 1920s.References
External links
* [http://www.asm.org/Membership/index.asp?bid-21544 American Society of Microbiology presidents]
* [http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9446441 Biography.com profile]
* [http://web.mit.edu/science/deansSOS.html Deans of the M.I.T. School of Science]
* [http://members.ift.org/IFT/Awards/AchievmentAwards/AwardWinners/pastawardwinners.htm Institute of Food Technologists Samuel Cate Prescott Award winners]
* [http://www.angelfire.com/planet/scprescott/SCPrescott.htm Samuel Cate Prescott in the news]
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