Harold martin scott (1901-1991)

H. M. Scott, or Scotty to his friends, was born in 1901 in Lincoln, Nebraska. He received his B.S. degree in 1924 from Oregon State College, his M.S. in 1927 from Kansas State College, and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1938. He held faculty positions at North Dakota State College (1927–1928), Kansas State College (1928–1941), the University of Connecticut (1941–1947), and the University of Illinois (1947–1969). He married Elizabeth (Betty) Stewart Hill in 1923, and they were parents of five children. At Kansas State College (now Kansas State University), Scotty did what is still considered to be cutting-edge research on ovulation and the effects of photoperiod on egg formation. He also did seminal work in avian genetics. During his 13-year tenure at Kansas State, Scotty published extensively in a variety of biological journals, including Poultry Science, Journal of Experimental Zoology, Science, Journal of Heredity, Physiological Reviews and Endocrinology. In conversations I had with Scotty, it was obvious that he had fond memories of his days at Kansas State. In 1941, Scotty moved to the University of Connecticut to become Professor and Head of the Poultry Department. For the next three years he continued to emphasize reproductive physiology, but in 1945 he became interested in the growing broiler chick. Within a few years, he developed what became known as the Connecticut broiler ration. This corn-based, high energy diet, fortified with “animal-protein factor” and nicotinic acid, rapidly became the standard in the emerging commercial broiler industry. While at Connecticut, Scotty worked with a senior professor, E. P. Singsen, and a junior professor, L. D. Matterson. A serious conflict arose between Scott and Singsen in that Singsen apparently began declaring himself the originator of the Connecticut broiler ration. Scotty became so incensed by what he perceived to be Singsen’s unprofessional behavior that he left Connecticut in 1947 to take a position as Head of the Poultry Division in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois. Several years later, a young Hans Fisher, raised on a poultry farm and therefore aware of the famous Connecticut broiler ration, decided to enroll for M.S. and Ph.D. work at the University of Connecticut. In Fisher’s words, he spent two miserable years at Connecticut, being forced by Singsen into doing mostly manual labor for the department. Hans and two other graduate students finally went to the Dean of the Graduate College at Connecticut and said they had had enough. The Dean said he might have predicted as much, and he advised the students to transfer to other universities. In fact, the Dean actually wrote letters of recommendation for all three students. Fisher decided to enroll at Illinois, and upon arriving, Scott greeted him enthusiastically—with a warm hug. Fisher went on to complete his Ph.D. under Scott, as did 26 other students between 1947 and 1969. While at Illinois, Scott continued to emphasize the broiler chick in his research. He became friends and colleagues with H. H. Mitchell, Tom Hamilton, Connor Johnson, Fred Kummerow, Dick Forbes, Harold Draper, Gaurth Hansen and Bill Rutter. I joined the Illinois faculty in 1967, after spending two years at Eli Lilly and Co., following completion of my Ph.D. at the University of Illinois in 1965. Thus, having worked with Dr. Scott as a graduate student, I now had to adjust to working with him as a colleague. This was not easy in that Scotty had a strong personality, and he was much more comfortable being the leader than being an equal partner or collaborator. In the early 1950s, Scotty became interested in semipurified and purified diets for young chicks. I recall browsing through his personal library in the early sixties and finding older issues of The Journal of Nutrition containing papers from the laboratories of Almquist at UC-Davis, Norris at Cornell and Jukes at