Harvey Washington Wiley, M.D.
1/1/1907 - 3/15/1912*
Harvey Washington Wiley was born in a log farmhouse in Indiana,
in 1844. A top graduate of Hanover College (1867), Wiley then studied
at Indiana Medical College where he received his M.D. in 1871. After
he graduated, Wiley accepted a position teaching chemistry at the
medical college, where he taught Indiana's first laboratory course
in chemistry beginning in 1873. Following a brief interlude at Harvard,
where he was awarded a B.S. degree after only a few months of intense
effort, he accepted a faculty position in chemistry at the newly
opened Purdue University in 1874. In 1878, Wiley travelled overseas
where he attended the lectures of August Wilhelm von Hoffman the
celebrated German discoverer of several organic tar derivatives,
including analine. While in Germany, Wiley was elected to the prestigious
German Chemical Society founded by Hoffman. Wiley spent most of
his time in the Imperial Food Laboratory in Bismarck working with
Eugene Sell, mastering the use of the polariscope and studying sugar
chemistry. Upon his return to Purdue, Wiley was asked by the Indiana
State Board of Health to analyze the sugars and syrups on sale in
the state to detect any adulteration. He spent his last years at
Purdue studying sorghum culture and sugar chemistry, hoping, as
did others, to help the United States develop a strong domestic
sugar industry. His first published paper in 1881 discussed the
adulteration of sugar with glucose.
Wiley was offered the position of Chief Chemist in the U. S.
Department of Agriculture by George Loring, the Commissioner of
Agriculture, in 1882. Loring was seeking to replace Peter Collier,
his current Chief Chemist, with someone who could employ a more
objective approach to the study of sorghum, the potential of which
as a sugar source, was far from proven. Wiley accepted the offer
after being passed over for the presidency of Purdue, allegedly
because he was "too young and too jovial," unorthodox
in his religious beliefs, and also a bachelor. Wiley brought with
him to Washington a practical knowledge of agriculture, a sympathetic
approach to the problems of agricultural industry and an untapped
talent for public relations. After assisting Congress in their
earliest questions regarding the safety of the chemical preservatives
then being employed in foods, Wiley was appropriated $5,000 in
1902 to study the effects of a diet consisting in part of the
various preservatives on human volunteers. These famous "poison
squad" studies drew national attention to the need for a
federal food and drug law. Wiley soon became a crusader and coalition
builder in support of national food and drug regulation which
earned him the title of "Father of the Pure Food and Drugs
Act" when it became law in 1906.1
Wiley authored two editions of Foods and Their Adulteration
(1907 and 1911), which detailed for a broad audience the history,
preparation and subsequent adulteration of basic foodstuffs. He
was also a founding father of the Association of Official Analytic
Chemists, and left a legacy to the American pure food movement
as its "crusading chemist" that was both broad and substantial.
The fact that enforcement of the federal Pure Food and Drugs Act
of 1906 was given to the Bureau of Chemistry rather than placed
in the Department of Commerce or the Department of the Interior
is a tribute to the scientific qualifications which the Bureau
of Chemistry brought to the study of food and drug adulteration
and misbranding. The first food and drug inspectors were hired
to complement the work of the laboratory scientists, and an inspection
program was launched which revolutionized the country's food supply
within the first decade under the new federal law. Wiley's tenure,
however, was marked by controversy over the administration of
the 1906 statute which he had worked so hard to secure. Concerns
over preserving chemicals, which had not been specifically addressed
in the law, continued to be controversial. The Secretary of Agriculture
appointed a Referee Board of Consulting Scientists, headed by
Ira Remsen at Johns Hopkins to repeat Wiley's human trials of
preservatives. The use of saccharin, bleached flour, caffeine,
and benzoate of soda were all important issues which had to be
ultimately settled by the courts in the early days under the new
law. Under Wiley's leadership, however, the Bureau of Chemistry
grew significantly, both in strength and in stature after assuming
responsibility for the enforcement of the 1906 Act. Between 1906
and 1912, Wiley's staff expanded from 110 to 146 and in 1910 the
Bureau moved into its own building. Appropriations, which had
been only $155,000 in 1906 were $963,780 in 1912.
In 1912, Wiley resigned and took over the laboratories of Good
Housekeeping Magazine where he established the Good Housekeeping
Seal of Approval and worked tirelessly on behalf of the consuming
public. Harvey Wiley died at his home in Washington in 1930, and
was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
*Although the Pure Food and
Drug Act was signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt on
June 6, 1906, it did not become effective until Jan. 1, 1907.
Dr. Wiley had been conducting laboratory studies on food adulteration
as part of his job with the Department of Agriculture since 1883.