Samuel Cate Prescott | |
|---|---|
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| Born | (1872-04-05)April 5, 1872 |
| Died | March 19, 1962(1962-03-19) (aged 89) |
| Alma mater | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Known for | Time-temperature studies incanning,food microbiology, President of theAmerican Society for Microbiology (ASM, then Society of American Bacteriologists (SAB) (1919)), first president of theInstitute of Food Technologists (IFT) (1939–41) |
| Awards | IFTNicholas Appert Award – 1943 IFTStephen M. Babcock Award – 1950 Honorary member ofPhi Tau Sigma – 1953 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Food science,microbiology |
| Institutions | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Doctoral advisor | William Thompson Sedgwick (see footnote) |
| Doctoral students | Philip K. Bates,Samuel A. Goldblith,Bernard E. Proctor |
| Notes | |
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 Americanfood scientist andmicrobiologist who was involved in the development offood safety,food science,public health, andindustrial microbiology.
Prescott was born inSouth 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 ungradedschoolhouse 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 theSanborn 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.[1]
Majoring inchemistry 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 aS.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 thesewage treatment facility inWorcester, Massachusetts, where he worked for the rest of 1894 and part of 1895.[2]
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 newestretort 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 cannedclams, 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 °F (121 °C) for ten minutes in a retort.[3]
The processing time-temperature studies also led to research of processing time-temperature studies of cannedlobster,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[4][5] This research, though important to the growth offood technology,was never patented.[6] It would also pave the way forthermal death time research that was pioneered by Bigelow andC. Olin Ball from 1921 to 1936.[7]
While Prescott was doing his canning research, he also taught biology at MIT. This included courses inbacteriology, 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.[8]
His research would continue from 1910 to 1921 intobananafungal disease inCosta Rica in 1917 and 1918 that would lead to a disease-resistant banana.[9] DuringWorld War I, Prescott also was commissioned aUnited States Armymajor 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 ofcolonel.[10][11]
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 on May 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 asPhilip 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.[12]
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 intocoffee from 1923 to 1937 and would include futureNobel LaureateRobert Burns Woodward when Woodward was a graduate student at MIT.[13] He also worked on research incitric acidfermentation,refrigerated andfrozen foods, and was instrumental in starting a newscientific journal namedFood Research in 1936 (Journal of Food Science since 1961).[14] 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.
As food technology grew from the individual family farm to the factory level, including theslaughterhouse for meat andpoultry processing, thecannery for canned foods, andbakeries for bread as examples, the need to have personnel trained for the food industries. Literature such asUpton Sinclair'sThe Jungle in 1906 about slaughterhouse operations would be a factor in the establishment of theU.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) later that year.
TheUnited 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.[15]
By 1935, both Prescott and Proctor (now on the MIT faculty) decided that it was time to hold an international conference regarding this.[16] 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.[16]
This meeting proved so successful that in early 1938 that a second conference would be held in 1939. Initially led byGeorge J. Hucker of theNew York State Agricultural Experiment Station (part ofCornell University) inGeneva, New York, a small group meeting was held on August 5, 1938, on forming an organization with an expanded group meeting inNew York City on January 16, 1939, to further discuss this.[17] The second conference was held at MIT June 29 to July 1, 1939, with Proctor as conference chair. 600 people attended this event.
At the final session, the chairman of the sessionFred 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.[17] 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 1927–1928[18]
Following his 1942 retirement, Prescott remained a busy man even becoming acting dean during 1944 when the current deanGeorge Russell Harrison, aphysicist, was called on assignment toAustralia.[19] 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.[20] Prescott also wrote about the early history of MIT in a book published by the MIT Press inCambridge, Massachusetts, in 1954 entitledWhen M.I.T. was "Boston Tech" (1861–1916).[21] He also remained active in IFT, both on the national level and in theNortheast Section (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,Rhode Island, andVermont) until his death in 1962.[22]
Prescott died on March 19, 1962, shortly after suffering astroke at 89.[23] Prior to his death in 1961, the Underwood Canning Company dedicated a newlaboratory wing of their facility in honor of Prescott and Underwood.[24] After Prescott's 1962 passing, the Underwood company established the Underwood Prescott Memorial Lectureship that ran until 1982 when the Underwood Company was sold.[25]
The Institute of Food Technologists established theSamuel 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.[26] Three MIT faculty have held this professorship since its inception:Samuel A. Goldblith,Gerald N. Wogan, and since 1996,Steven R. Tannenbaum.[23][27]
All honors are at this reference[28] unless noted.
Prescott married Alice Chase (1884–1958) in June 1910 and remained married until her 1958 death.[33] They had three children, Robert Sedgwick Prescott (1911-?), Samuel Chase Prescott (1912–1976), and Eleanor Prescott Clemence (1914-?)[34][35] He also was an active writer both of technicaltextbooks,[35] and ofpoetry.[36] Prescott even wrote an award-winning essay for theMassachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles on "Can Children Be Saved from Death by Motor Cars"[37] in the late 1920s.
