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1
*
Department of Biochemistry, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37232 and
Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011
1To whom correspondence should be addressed at 1301 Crestridge Court, Nashville, TN 37221-4336. E-mail: pbswan{at}bellsouth.net
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INTRODUCTION |
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 TOP INTRODUCTION Graduate studiesFaculty member at Western...Work with the Food...Heading the American Institute...Life as a private..."Catherine"Memberships and professional...REFERENCES |
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)
Franklin Church Bing attended high school in the Frankford section of
Philadelphia and took inspiration from his high school science classes
to undertake a career in science. He attended Ursinus College for
1 y and then in 1921 transferred to the University of
Pennsylvania, majoring in chemistry and biology. Obtaining his A.B.
degree in 1924, he taught biology and chemistry at Davis and Elkins
College in West Virginia for 1 y, catching the frogs used in
biology and generating the chemicals used in the chemistry laboratory.
The next year, he taught chemistry in the pharmacy section of what is
now the Medical College of South Carolina (Bing 1980
).
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Graduate studies |
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TOPINTRODUCTIONGraduate studiesFaculty member at Western...Work with the Food...Heading the American Institute...Life as a private..."Catherine"Memberships and professional...REFERENCES |
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). Bing began his study with Mendel in 1926, but like many of Mendel’s later students, he was guided initially by the more junior faculty members Alfred Shohl and A. H. Smith. In 1927, he took a summer job at the Connecticut Board on Fisheries and Wildlife and completed a study on trout nutrition with Clive McCay. Bing had originally collaborated with Shohl on studies of rickets in rats, but his dissertation was on the iron requirements of the mouse.
While at Yale, he met and married Catherine Payne, a young nurse in charge of the children’s section at Grace New Haven Hospital. Some years later they had a son, John Howard.
Although he had not yet completed his dissertation, in the fall of
1929, feeling in need of more financial resources, he took a position
in the Biochemistry Department at Western Reserve University in
Cleveland, Ohio. Nevertheless, he was able to submit a satisfactory
dissertation in the spring of 1930 and was awarded a doctorate from
Yale University without having to return and undergo an examination on
his work. Volumes 1 and 2 of The Journal of Nutrition each
contains one of Bing’s papers that describes some of his work at Yale
(Bing and Mendel 1929
, Smith and Bing 1928
).
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Faculty member at Western Reserve University |
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TOPINTRODUCTIONGraduate studiesFaculty member at Western...Work with the Food...Heading the American Institute...Life as a private..."Catherine"Memberships and professional...REFERENCES |
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) and studies on the roles of iron and copper in
nutritional anemia in rats (Bing et al. 1934
), which led
him to a brief interest in vitamin G (riboflavin) (Remp and Bing 1934
). Together with student colleagues, Bing published 15 scientific papers describing results of the studies he conducted at Western Reserve. These were published primarily in The Journal of Biological Chemistry, The Journal of Nutrition and The Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. In 1935/1936, Bing was promoted to the rank of assistant professor in the department.
During the years Bing spent at Western Reserve University, he was an active member of Hoover’s White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, along with Mendel and many of the other leading nutritionists of the time. This was his initiation into formulation of nutrition policy and was a strong influence on his subsequent career.
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Work with the Food and Nutrition Council |
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TOPINTRODUCTIONGraduate studiesFaculty member at Western...Work with the Food...Heading the American Institute...Life as a private..."Catherine"Memberships and professional...REFERENCES |
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As the first executive secretary of the Council on Foods (later the Council on Foods and Nutrition), Bing made noteworthy contributions that had extraordinarily broad impacts on furthering both the science and application of nutrition. The council established the uniquely effective, completely voluntary program of "accepted foods" in which companies submitted food products for review as to whether they met the council’s standards for wholesomeness, especially with respect to the requirements of composition and nutritional value. In addition, the companies submitted proposed advertising copy. When the council approved a product and proposed advertisements, a notice was published in The Journal of the American Medical Association and the company was allowed to use a special seal signifying AMA approval on the product label as well as on advertisements. The council ensured conformance by maintaining mandatory review and approval by the council of all advertising copy before its publication. This program pioneered in setting standards for food labeling and the enrichment or fortification of foods with individual nutrients. Through cooperation, the work of the council was instrumental in shaping subsequent regulations issued by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Bing’s experience in this cooperation provided background that he would use later to make a career change.
The Food Acceptance program was not the only significant activity of
the Council on Foods and Nutrition. Bing led the group to undertake
important activities in nutrition education intended for physicians but
also useful for nutrition professionals. A series of articles published
in The Journal of the American Medical Association providing
up-to-date information about vitamins, under Bing’s guidance, was
later compiled in a widely consulted and highly influential book
(American Medical Association 1939
). A second series,
also under Bing’s guidance, became the classic Handbook of
Nutrition (American Medical Association 1943
). In
addition, the council gave critical support for several important
public health practices related to nutritional quality of food
products, including the fortification of margarine with vitamin A, the
fortification of milk with vitamin D, the iodination of salt and the
enrichment of flour.
Another way in which Bing led the council to influence national nutrition policy was through cooperation with the National Research Council. At the advent of World War II, the National Research Council established the Food and Nutrition Board to advise on the nutrition requirements of the population, and Bing and most of the members of the Council on Foods and Nutrition were among the first members of the board. Through overlapping membership, the work of the council and the work of the committees of the board were joined in pursuit of such issues as the enrichment of flour, food safety and the appropriate supplementation of the food supply with individual nutrients.
By 1942, with the country fully involved in war, Bing became interested
in contributing his knowledge of applied nutrition and biochemistry to
the work of the U.S. Navy, and at the suggestion of Ivy, who was
heading the Naval Research Institute, Bing applied for an officer’s
commission. Military service was not to be, however, because the Navy
found that Bing’s recent surgery for osteomyelitis in his right tibia
disqualified him (Bing 1943
).
In connection with his responsibilities for both the Food and Nutrition Board and the Council on Foods and Nutrition, Bing turned his attention to the studies that involved the provision of vitamin supplements to industrial workers. Although there were many skeptics on the board and council, the War Production Board was interested in the possibility that such a program might increase wartime industrial output. A limited number of demonstration projects were undertaken after an investigator from the California Institute of Technology reported that workers at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, who received supplements in a cookie during a work break, had a significant increase in morale and a slight decrease in work absences compared with nonsupplemented workers.
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Heading the American Institute of Baking |
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TOPINTRODUCTIONGraduate studiesFaculty member at Western...Work with the Food...Heading the American Institute...Life as a private..."Catherine"Memberships and professional...REFERENCES |
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). Deciding to accept
the position as of March 1943, Bing wrote his colleagues: "It seems
to me that I shall have an opportunity in this new position to do worth
while work and to render a real public service by trying to apply the
ideals for which the Council stands to one limited but important
field" (Bing 1943
). He expressed regret at leaving but
also a feeling that he was leaving the affairs of the council in good
order. Bing’s employment by the institute was widely heralded, and he energetically set out to exploit this opportunity for nutrition education in the baking industry as well as for consumers. He continued to promote the use of enriched flour and advocated the inclusion of vitamin D in the enrichment process.
While with the institute, he participated in a study of vitamin
supplementation of workers in the steel industry. The study was
designed so that each group of workers received a vitamin supplement
during one period, a placebo during a second period and no supplement
during the third period. The steel production and morale of each group
were measured. Analysis of the results, however, was complicated by the
fact that the workers were classified into 15 different occupations.
Moreover, only two thirds of the workers remained in the same job at
the end of the 10-mo study. The data were quite variable, and the
numbers were too few in each group to support satisfactory analyses.
Bing and his colleagues concluded that the placebo was equally as
effective as the vitamins in improving the workers sense of
well-being, and both were better than not receiving any attention.
There was no obvious effect on production (Ivy et al. 1947
).
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Life as a private consultant |
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TOPINTRODUCTIONGraduate studiesFaculty member at Western...Work with the Food...Heading the American Institute...Life as a private..."Catherine"Memberships and professional...REFERENCES |
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). He became a respected source of information regarding
food regulations and matters of nutritional biochemistry important to
food and drug companies. His earlier experience with guidelines for
nutrient addition to foods, and as a consultant to the FDA on this
matter, made him a valuable aid to companies applying for FDA
acceptance of new food products.
In 1948, while still with the institute, Bing began chairing the newly
formed American Public Health Association’s Committee on Chemicals
Introduced in Foods. For several years the committee published annual
reports that made important contributions to the then vigorously,
publicly debated issues related to food additives. The early reports of
the committee attracted attention from Congress. In October 1950, the
chief counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives’ Select Committee
to Investigate the Use of Chemicals in Food Products (the Delaney
Committee) invited Bing to become a paid consultant to that committee
(Bing 1950
). For almost 2 y, he contributed
significantly to the work of the committee, writing background papers
for the members, attending the hearings and writing summaries for the
technical parts of the proceedings. During this time he also served on
the Food and Nutrition Board’s Food Protection Committee.
Throughout his consulting career, Bing had many respected companies and trade associations among his clients, including the National Canners Association, the American Meat Institute, Squibb, Mead Johnson, Procter and Gamble, Pepperidge Farm and many others. He worked with Anheuser-Busch in advising them on how to obtain the experimental information for a "master file" of data that would be required by the FDA for approval of the company’s vitamin B-12 concentrate and on other similar projects.
Writer and historian.
After several years of a successful consulting career, while maintaining his active participation in professional activities, Bing increasingly turned his attention to two lifelong loves. One was the act of writing both prose and poetry, and the other was the telling of the history of science.
Bing’s professor, L. B. Mendel, was himself a prolific writer.
Among other things he wrote many unsigned essays on clinical topics for
the Journal of the American Medical Association. After Bing
completed his doctoral work, Mendel, knowing of Bing’s writing skills
and his pleasure in writing, invited him to write essays on suitable
topics of his choice, and Mendel submitted them to the Journal of
the American Medical Association. Like most of Mendel’s students,
Bing was in awe of his professor’s writing skills, so when an essay
that he had submitted was published, Bing immediately compared what he
had submitted to Mendel with the copy that appeared in print. Many
years later he said that it was good instruction and a valuable
learning experience to see the changes Mendel had made (Bing 1953
).
Although he wrote several scientific articles while at Yale, Bing also
published his first historical article at Yale, writing on John Lining
in the Scientific Monthly (Bing 1928
). Later,
he published two short articles on nutritional aspects of
Magendie’s work (Bing 1931 and 1937
). During his years
with the AMA, Bing had editorial and writing responsibilities for
The Cyclopedia of Medicine, the Encyclopedia
Britannica Yearbook and Nutrition Reviews.
As he began to wind down his active consulting career, in the 1970s Bing began to help Neige Todhunter, the biographical editor of the Journal of Nutrition, with the task of identifying suitable subjects and authors for the Journal’s series of biographies. He contributed many, holding the all-time record of authoring nine uncommonly interesting and instructive biographical sketches. Some were of friends and colleagues from his days at Yale, and others were of colleagues from the Food and Nutrition Board.
Some of Bing’s writing was about nutrition history in the making, such
as his article "Nutrition in the War" (Bing 1943
);
other papers reflected longer-term interests. In 1971 he published
a summary of the long and winding trail on which Mendel had set him
during his 1st y at Yale. Bing had used the word "metabolism" in
connection with a 1743 citation in his article on John Lining, and
Mendel suggested that Bing look up the history of the word (which
probably was first used later than 1743). Bing describes his subsequent
pursuit of the topic over many years in the words of a scholar who
obviously enjoyed the task (Bing 1971
). Another
long-term interest, one that was appropriate to a boy from
Philadelphia, was revealed in his paper on nutrition during the time of
Benjamin Franklin (Bing 1976
).
But Bing’s writing did not stop with essays on aspects of the history of science. He wrote a history of the First Congregational Church of Evanston, in which he was a deacon and a long-time member. He also wrote and published >50 poems. His friends and colleagues were always glad to receive his often light-hearted, sometimes nostalgic, poetic greeting at Christmas time each year. One year special colleagues received a booklet of sonnets, one for each month of the year, illustrated by Franklin and one of his brothers.
When Bing went to Chicago and began his association with Morris Fishbein, who was a well-regarded writer, he was invited by Fishbein to become a member of the Chicago Literary Club. He was faithful in his attendance of their gatherings for over four decades and served a term as president of the club. As was the custom, he read many of the pieces he wrote, including most of his poems, at a club gathering. His first published poems were in the Chicago Tribune, but most were published in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. One poem read to the club was:
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"Catherine" |
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TOPINTRODUCTIONGraduate studiesFaculty member at Western...Work with the Food...Heading the American Institute...Life as a private..."Catherine"Memberships and professional...REFERENCES |
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Memberships and professional service |
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TOPINTRODUCTIONGraduate studiesFaculty member at Western...Work with the Food...Heading the American Institute...Life as a private..."Catherine"Memberships and professional...REFERENCES |
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Bing’s most active service to the American Institute of Nutrition was related to the work of the history committee. He was a member of the first ad hoc history committee, formed in 1973, and continued to be an active member of the committee for many years, contributing papers to history symposia, arranging exhibits at the annual meetings, working with the society’s archives and serving as archivist from 1980 to 1982.
Bing was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi. He was also a member of the American Chemical Society and the American Society of Biological Chemists. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an associate fellow of the American Medial Association. Early in 1988 he contributed his papers to the nutrition collection in the Archives of the Vanderbilt Medical Center’s library, where they are available to scholars as a rich source of nutrition history in the 20th century.
To be near to their son, a professor at Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio, Franklin Bing and his wife moved to a retirement facility in Upper Sandusky in 1988. Both were having some problems with eyesight and generally failing health. It was there that he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in October of that year.
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FOOTNOTES |
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REFERENCES |
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TOPINTRODUCTIONGraduate studiesFaculty member at Western...Work with the Food...Heading the American Institute...Life as a private..."Catherine"Memberships and professional...REFERENCES |
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1. American Medical Association The Vitamins 1939 American Medical Association Chicago, IL.
2. American Medical Association Handbook of Nutrition 1943 American Medical Association Chicago, IL.
3. Bing F. C. John Lining, an early American scientist. Scientific Monthly 1928;26:249-252
4.
Bing F. C. A forgotten contribution to nutrition by Magendie. Science 1931;74:456
5. Bing F. C. The dietary advice of Francois Magendie. Hygeia 1937;15:153-154
6. Bing, F. C. (1943) Letter to C. A. Elvehjem. Bing Papers Box 1: Archives of the Vanderbilt Medical Center Library, Nashville, TN.
7. Bing F. C. Nutrition in the war. J. Lab. Clin. Med. 1943;28:1295-1304
8. Bing, F. C. (1950) Diary for the year 1950. Bing Papers Box 7: Archives of the Vanderbilt Medical Center Library, Nashville, TN.
9. Bing, F. C. (1950) Letter to Kleinfeld. Bing Papers Box 2b: Archives of the Vanderbilt Medical Center Library, Nashville, TN.
10. Bing F. C. Professor Lafayette B. Mendel as a medical essayist. Yale J. Biol. Med. 1953;26:139-144
11. Bing F. C. The history of the word ‘metabolism’. J. Hist. Med. Appl Sci. 1971;26:158-180
12. Bing F. C. Nutrition research and education in the age of Franklin. J. Am. Diet. Assoc. 1976;68:14-21[Medline]
13. Bing, F. C. (1979) Letter to D. Bearman. Bing Papers Box 9: Archives of the Vanderbilt Medical Center Library, Nashville, TN.
14. Bing, F. C. (1980) Oral History. M. Balsley, interviewer. Bing Papers Box 9: Archives of the Vanderbilt Medical Center Library, Nashville, TN.
15. Bing F. C., Mendel L. B. The vitamin B and the vitamin G requirements of the albino mouse. J. Nutr. 1929;2:49-58
16.
Bing F. C., Sauerwein E. C., Myers V. C. Studies on the nutritional anemia of the rat. X. Hemoglobin production and iron and copper metabolism with milk of low copper content. J. Biol. Chem. 1934;105:343-354
17. Heinle R. W., Bing F. C. Studies on the nutritional anemia of the rat. VIII. A method for the estimation of hemoglobin and erythrocytes on a single small sample of blood. J. Biol. Chem. 1933;101:309-372
18. Ivy A. C., Jung F. T., Bing F. C., Cisler L. The effect of administering a vitamin supplement, in capsules, to groups of workers in the steel industry. Indust. Med. 1947;16:163-167
19. Remp D. G., Bing F. C. Inanition as a factor in vitamin G deficiency. J. Nutr. 1934;8:457-462
20. Smith A. H., Bing F. C. Improved rate of growth of stock albino rats. J. Nutr. 1928;1:179-189
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