Margaret Hume

Margaret Hume
Margaret Hume at Newnham College in 1909
Born1887
Died1968
Alma materNewnham College, Cambridge
AwardsBathurst studentship
Scientific career
FieldsBotany
Nutrition
InstitutionsBotany School, Cambridge
University of the Cape of Good Hope
Lister Institute for Preventative Medicine

Eleanor Muriel Margaret Hume (often known as Margaret or Margot

Hume, 1887–1968) was an English botanist, nutritionist and science editor. After lecturing in botany in South Africa and England, she studied nutrition at the Lister Institute of Preventative Medicine and wrote for and edited several nutrition journals.

Education and early career

Educated at Eastbourne Ladies' College, Hume studied the natural sciences tripos at Newnham College, Cambridge, receiving a first class pass in Part II in 1910.[1] She then received a Bathurst studentship to continue her studies, working at the Botany School on her first publications, including a paper engaging with the graft hybrid controversy which was the focus of William Bateson.[2][3][4] She also worked on galia under the supervision of Arthur Tansley.[1]

In 1913, Hume worked as lecturer in botany at the South African College at the University of the Cape of Good Hope, returning to England in 1916 to work in munitions.[5][6] She delivered lectures in biology at University College, London in 1918.[5]

Lister Institute

Staff of the Lister Institute in 1933. Hume is fourth from left in the front row.

In 1919 she joined the Lister Institute of Preventative Medicine in London, where she would remain until 1959.[7][8] The Institute studied the preventative effects of nutrition. For example, Hume conducted preliminary research in a foundling hospital in Vienna which contributed to Harriette Chick's proof that rickets was caused by deficiencies in diet rather than by microbes.[9]

During her time at the Lister Institute, Hume published on nutrition and its impact on medical conditions in medical and scientific journals including the British Journal of Nursing, The Practitioner, the Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps and the Biochemical Journal. Her specialisms were the vitamins A and D, and she organised co-operative studies for international standards for vitamins.[8][10] She was also a member of the Accessory Food Factors Committee.[8] Hume, Chick, and virologist Marjorie MacFarlane wrote a history of the Lister Institute which was published in 1971.[11]

Editorial work

An original member of the Nutrition Society, she was joint editor of the first five volumes of its Proceedings, and was on the British Journal of Nutrition and the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society from 1947 to 1959. She was also on the editorial staff of Nutrition Abstracts and Reviews.

She died in 1968.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b Forrester, John; Cameron, Laura, eds. (2017), "Tansley's Dream", Freud in Cambridge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 7–56, doi:10.1017/9781139020862.003, ISBN 978-0-521-86190-8, retrieved 2024-09-11
  2. ^ Hume, E. M. Margaret (1912). "The Histology of the Sieve Tubes of Pteridium aquilinum, with some Notes on Marsilia quadrifolia and Lygodiumdi chotomum". Annals of Botany. os-26 (2): 573–587. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.aob.a089401. ISSN 1095-8290.
  3. ^ Hume, Margaret (1913). "On the Presence Op Connecting Threads in Graft Hybrids". New Phytologist. 12 (6): 216–221. Bibcode:1913NewPh..12..216H. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8137.1913.tb05696.x. ISSN 0028-646X.
  4. ^ Holmes, Matthew (2024-04-16). The Graft Hybrid: Challenging Twentieth-Century Genetics. University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 978-0-8229-9008-6.
  5. ^ a b Forrester (2017), p. 50.
  6. ^ "Lucy Wills (1888-1964), the life and research of an adventurous independent woman". The James Lind Library. Retrieved 2024-09-11.
  7. ^ Forrester (2017), p. 52.
  8. ^ a b c d Copping, A. M. (1970). "Eleanor Margaret Hume". British Journal of Nutrition. 24 (1): 1. doi:10.1079/BJN19700003. ISSN 1475-2662.
  9. ^ Chick, D. H. (1976). "Study of rickets in Vienna 1919-1922". Medical History. 20 (1): 41–51. doi:10.1017/s0025727300021785. ISSN 0025-7273. PMC 1081690. PMID 765649.
  10. ^ "Lister Institute Report". Br Med J. 1 (4042): 1379–1380. 1938. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.4042.1379. ISSN 0007-1447.
  11. ^ Chick, Harriette; Hume, Margaret; MacFarlane, Marjorie (1971). War on disease: a history of the Lister Institute. Andre Deutsch.