George Briggs was born and raised in the setting of a land grant university. His father, George M. "Soybean" Briggs, was a field crops extension agronomist and professor of agronomy at the University of Wisconsin from 1919 until his retirement in 1954. Briggs, senior, was a pioneer evangelist for crop improvement who routinely carried soybeans in his pockets to distribute to his audiences. This same evangelical flair typified George Briggs, the younger, in his enthusiasm for balanced nutrition: the proper amounts of a variety of foods chosen from the major food groups.

George M. Briggs, Jr. was born in Grantsburg, Wisconsin, on February 21, 1919. He had one sister, Helen, and five brothers, William, H. Randolph, Frank (killed in action in World War II), Rodney and Robert. Briggs attended elementary and high school in Madison, Wisconsin. He earned his B.S. in agricultural chemistry, with honors, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1940, where he also earned an M.S. in biochemistry in 1941, advised by C. A. Elvehjem and E. B. Hart. His Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1944 was based upon his work in Elvehjem's laboratory, where he continued as a postdoctoral fellow for several months. Briggs was Associate Professor from 1945 to 1946 and Professor (1946-1947) of poultry nutrition at the University of Maryland. He served as Associate Professor of poultry nutrition at the University of Minnesota from 1947 to 1951. Briggs worked as Chief of the Nutrition Unit of the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland, from 1951 to 1958, and was Executive Secretary of three training committees (Biochemistry, Nutrition and Pharmacology) in the Division of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health, from 1958 to 1960. He was appointed founding department chairman of the Nutrition and Home Economics Department at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1960, seeing that department through its transition to the Department of Nutritional Sciences in 1962, and serving as chair until 1970. He continued as professor of nutrition in that department until his retirement in 1984. George also was the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the College of Natural Resources at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1980.

The accomplishments of this career in public institutions began with his research, which was a major driving force throughout his career. The long-standing goal of University of Wisconsin nutritionists to optimize diets for livestock production led to many of the most fundamental discoveries in nutritional science, such as the "single grain experiment" started in 1907 by Hart, McCollum, Steenbock and Humphrey that proved the concept that a diet permitting appropriate growth must not only

be of adequate energy and nitrogen content but must also contain micronutrients, which were as yet to be identified (Carpenter et al. 1997). In particular, his ongoing efforts to optimize diets for poultry led Briggs to acquire funding for Mary Shorb to complete development of a microbial assay system permitting the rapid assay of vitamin B-12 (Shorb and Briggs 1948, 1952). This assay system was crucial to the identification of vitamin B-12 by a team of scientists at Merck and Co., Inc. Briggs also discovered the requirement of poultry for nicotinic acid when they are fed diets of low tryptophan content (Briggs 1945 and 1946, Briggs et al. 1946, Groschke et al. 1948). Briggs's work to define nutritionally adequate plant-based diets for poultry contributed to the wide consumption of poultry and eggs. For Briggs's part in these studies, and his development of synthetic diets that facilitated study of unidentified growth factors and selected nutritional deficiencies, he was awarded the Poultry Science Association's Borden Award in 1958 for outstanding basic research contributions to nutrition.

Briggs pursued what might be called "classical" nutrition research throughout his career, always searching for new dietary sources of essential growth factors. Although his efforts did not prove the existence of any additional essential vitamins, later in his career, his laboratory showed that alfalfa added to a well-defined, otherwise nutritionally adequate diet fed to rats enhanced growth (Kohler et al. 1973). This alfalfa growth factor has not yet been identified. Briggs's publication record of more than 150 refereed journal papers from 1941 to 1989 (and over 300 total publications) showed his wide-ranging interest in comparative nutrition to further define nutrient and especially vitamin requirements.

Perhaps Briggs's most significant contribution to nutrition research was in his career-long pursuit of the definition of standards for experimental animal diets. The effort toward dietary definition and standardization continues to be key to the validity of experimental nutrition. His colleague on the first AIN Committee for Laboratory Animal Diets, John Bieri, noted that George "was a master at finding omissions or limiting amounts of nutrients in papers" (Bieri, J. G., personal communication, 1996). Bieri also recalled that Briggs's attention to the details of experimental nutrition included his animal room at NIH, housing together rats, guinea pigs and 300-600 baby chicks at a time, which was an immaculate show-piece used by the NIH guides for visitors. Briggs campaigned for the recognition of the importance of thorough diet descriptions in the scientific literature. He originated the concept of AIN standardized diets. Several "Briggs salt mixes" and "Briggs diets" are listed in catalogs of companies distributing experimental diets. Mary Ann Williams, his collaborator in formulating the "Briggs-Williams" mineral mix, stated that George "was very annoyed with the lack of interest paid by other researchers and supply houses. He wanted these fundamental flaws [in diet composition] to get the attention they needed" (Williams, M. A., personal communication, 1996). The review published by Williams and Briggs (1963) was a foundation for the subsequent AIN-76 mineral mix. Briggs's review of nutritional methodologies in metabolic research, (Greenfield and Briggs 1971) is worthy of consideration as a "classic" in its field (Stokstad, E.L.R., 1981: Letter of nomination for AIN's Conrad A. Elvehjem Award for Public Service). Briggs's campaign for dietary standards led to the formation of the first AIN Committee on Standards for Nutritional Studies, which he chaired in 1973 and which was subsequently chaired by Dr. Bieri. This committee produced recommendations that resulted in the AIN-76 diets, vitamin and mineral mixes (Bieri et al. 1977). Briggs also served on a four-person "Committee on Laboratory Animal Diets of the Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources of the National Academy of Sciences," chaired by Dr. Paul Newberne (Newberne et al. 1978).

George Briggs's work as a public servant emphasized practical concerns, whether involving animal experimental methods or assurance of the nutritional health of the U.S. population. He had a zeal for explaining how the proper balance of foods could provide appropriate nutrition. His strong desire to combat nutrition misinformation from all sourceshealth food marketers, vitamin manufacturers, the food industry or consumer groupsled him to organize nutritionists to consolidate their efforts to provide sound public nutrition education. He asked the AIN Council to form a Nutrition Education Division and to sponsor a new journal on nutrition education, but the Council could not find sufficient interest in the idea. His requests were also declined by the American Home Economics Association and the American Dietetics Association. He enlisted the help of Helen Walsh, Helen Ullrich, Drs. Ruth Huenemann, George Stewart and Gaylord Whitlock to form the Society of Nutrition Education in 1967, of which he was the first president. With the assistance of the University of California and of several small grants from the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health, Education and Welfare and from the Nutrition Foundation, the Journal of Nutrition Education was founded in 1968-1969. He served as Executive Editor of the journal until 1976. The Society of Nutrition Education (SNE) and its journal continue to flourish, currently with several thousand members and subscribers around the world. At its annual meetings, SNE convenes a George M. Briggs Nutrition Science Symposium to honor him.

George Briggs also served the public through his service to the American Institute of Nutrition. He was Secretary, 1957-1960, Vice President, 1966-1967, and President, 1967-1968. During his term as Secretary, before there was an Executive Secretary or an office at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, he helped Dr. Paul Gyorgy to start a new division, the American Society of Clinical Nutrition. Briggs took action to increase AIN membership from then 420 members and to regain ownership of the Journal of Nutrition. With the hard work of many, and especially the work of Dr. William Darby, this was finally completed in 1968, during Briggs's term as AIN President. Briggs promoted the idea of an AIN office, with secretarial help, and of an AIN newsletter for members.

Briggs served the nutrition community and the public in many other ways. He served on the Executive Board of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in 1957-1958 and 1966-1969. Briggs was a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Nutrition Foundation from 1961 to 1971. He was active in the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS), chairing its committee on graduate degrees from 1967 to 1975 and chairing the IUNS Commission on Nutrition Training and Education from 1975 to 1978. Briggs chaired the panel on Nutrition Education in Elementary and Secondary Schools for the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health, chaired by Jean Mayer in 1969, making recommendations that helped to focus on the nutritional education needs of schools. From 1974 to 1979, he was a member of the Recommended Dietary Allowances Committee of the Food and Nutrition Board, National Academy of Sciences.

Briggs also served the nutritional interests of the public through his service to commodity and public interest groups, including the National Livestock and Meat Board, for which he was a member of their Nutrition Research Advisory Board from 1962 to 1973 and its chair from 1974 to 1989. Briggs chaired the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Poultry and Egg Council from 1956 to 1958. He organized the Nutrition Research Advisory Board of the California Avocado Commission and served as its first chair from 1965 to 1969, and he was made an honorary life member of the California Avocado Society in 1980 for sustained contributions to the California avocado industry. He also served as a member of the Nutrition Research Committee of the Sunkist Cooperative from 1963 to 1965 and nutrition research lecturer for the Florida Citrus Commission from 1972 to 1975.

Briggs's public service as a teacher of nutritional sciences began and came to full fruition in his voraciously collected, voluminous scientific reprint files. He was a life-long and intensely avid student of scientific literature, always dedicating disciplined time each week to reviewing the latest papers. His detailed notes, kept on file cards in the days before computers, formed the basis for his taking on the task of preparing a revision of Lydia Jean Bogert's textbook, Nutrition and Physical Fitness. This text was in its seventh edition, occupying nearly alone the niche of a science-based introductory nutrition text, and Bogert, because of advancing age, needed a collaborator. Briggs enlisted the help of Dr. Doris Calloway to correct and rewrite some of the sections. They collaborated with Bogert on the eighth and ninth editions, continuing together on 10th and 11th editions of the text, which served as a rigorous introduction to nutrition for thousands of students (Briggs and Calloway 1979). Briggs used this text as a starting point for his introductory nutrition course, Nutritional Sciences 10, which he taught for the major part of his career at the University of California, to a total of several thousand students. He was fond of having student volunteers demonstrate triacylglycerol structure as "Mr. [or later, Ms.] Glycerol and the Three Fatty Acids," and used props and witty stories to illustrate his points. He conducted a graduate seminar journal club every year, in which students learned the subtleties of critiquing experimental diets (it was a rare diet that "passed muster" with Dr. Briggs). Briggs was an enthusiastic and encouraging teacher, whose door was open to all in the department and surrounding community. He was more than willing to answer questions, often in the form of pointing the student toward helpful references. His reprint files were available to students and colleagues around the world, and he welcomed nutrition-related queries from anyone who called his office.

Briggs's writing and editing ability was in great demand. He reviewed many papers for the Journal of Nutrition and many other journals. Briggs was Associate Editor of Nutrition Reviews from 1954 to 1958, served on the Editorial Board of Federation Proceedings from 1957 to 1960, chaired the Journal Board of the American Dietetics Association in 1966, and served on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Nutrition (1962-1967) and the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1975-1979). He even edited a newspaper column, "Food for Life," from 1971 to 1975, published in six major California newspapers.

Briggs's scholarship of the nutrition literature and of the scientific literature in general was the foundation of all of his other achievements. His scholarship is well-represented by his reprint collection, which makes up about half of the Children's Nutrition Research Center (CNRC) collection on nutrition history, at Baylor University, in Texas. Nutritionists and historians can access the Briggs collection by special arrangement through the CNRC librarian, Mrs. Bee Wang [(713) 798-7074]. The Briggs collection is joined by other reprints collected by Drs. Elsie Widdowson, Jack Metcoff, Roger Guillemin and Hebbel E. Hoff. The collected reprints do not circulate. The library, however, provides photocopies.

The Briggs reprints are housed in the same filing cabinets and boxes as in their original location in Briggs's office. There are more than 500,000 items, of which about one-third are original, and the remaining photocopies. The Briggs filing system is intact (by topic, generally); however, the most frequently used reprints on amino acids, infant nutrition and all books also have been accessioned into the CNRC database. If funds were available, it would be valuable to accession all of the Briggs collection into this database, which can be searched internally and externally by modem.

Briggs's materials on nutrition education are used by the Nutrition Information Committee, which is composed of dietitians, nutritionists, public information workers and extension specialists located at the CNRC. Many of the reprints and photographs have been used by Dr. Buford Nichols in writing and editing the historical sidebars of the revised textbook Nutrition During Infancy.

The breadth and depth of George Briggs's contributions to nutrition, through his reprint collection, his research, his teaching, and his public and professional service, were acknowledged in his election as a Fellow of the American Institute of Nutrition in 1986. He was awarded AIN's Conrad A. Elvehjem Award for Public Service in Nutrition, posthumously, in 1991. Briggs's service to the public, in all of his many capacities, was based upon a deep belief in science in practical service to the public good. He was dedicated to providing scientifically sound information that benefited the production of wholesome, nutritious food and that aided consumers in making well-balanced food choices throughout the lifespan. He accomplished this mission.

George Briggs died of cancer May 31, 1989. He is survived by his wife, Eleanor, three daughters, Catherine, Marilyn and Nancy, and six grandchildren. Even during his final hospitalization, he was encouraging family and friends to "Be positive!" (his blood type). His infectious enthusiasm for life enabled his accomplishments. Whether in his jaunty blue plaid suit, in his quiz games at family reunions, in his ability to enlist the assistance of many excellent colleagues in fulfilling his ideas, in his attention to the nuances of a rodent diet, or in his willingness to serve the nutrition community in so many different ways, his love of life shone through. He was a warm, caring man, who helped to carry the field of nutritional sciences on his shoulders for a time, bringing to the task his whole heart.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS