16 Facts About Harriette Chick

Dame Harriette Chick DBE was a British microbiologist, protein scientist, and nutritionist.

Harriette Chick is best remembered for demonstrating the roles of sunlight and cod liver oil in preventing rickets.

Harriette Chick greatly contributed to the medical and public community as she discovered the origins of a number of diseases, including rickets and pellagra, and was a co-discoverer of the standard Chick-Martin test for disinfectants.

Harriette Chick was born in London, England, on January 6,1875 as the fifth child of six daughters and four sons of Samuel Chick and Emma Hooley, a Methodist family.

The Chick children were brought up strictly with no frivolities and regular attendance at family prayers.

Subsequently, six of the sisters, including Harriette Chick, continued to study for university degrees.

Harriette Chick was enrolled at Bedford College and then as a science student at University College London in 1894, and then proceeded to obtain her doctorate in bacteriology at the same university in 1904.

Harriette Chick died in Cambridge, England, in 1977, aged 102.

Harriette Chick's application raised several objections as no woman had been bestowed the fellowship previously.

Harriette Chick is known for having formulated Chick's Law in 1908, giving the relationship between the kill efficiency of organisms and contact time with a disinfectant.

In 1909, Harriette Chick was a cosignatory to a letter to The Times newspaper from a group of women graduates of the University of London calling for them to be allowed to vote for the Member of Parliament returned by their university.

Harriette Chick returned to the Chelsea building to prepare agglutinating sera for the diagnosis of typhoid and related diseases in troops.

Harriette Chick was appointed Head of a new nutrition section at the Lister Institute and continued with her research on rickets and, additionally, pellagra.

Harriette Chick served as secretary of the League of Nations health section committee on the physiological bases of nutrition from 1934 to 1937.

Harriette Chick was appointed CBE in 1932 and subsequently Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1949.

Harriette Chick served as Secretary of the Accessory Food Factors Committee of the Medical Research Council from 1918 to 1945.