Isabella Leitch

Isabella Leitch Order of the British Empire OBE (13 February 1890 – 21 July 1980) was a Scottish feminist, suffragette, nutritional physiologist, and leading expert on nutritional aspects of human pregnancy. She was fluent in French, German, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian, had an efficient reading knowledge in Dutch and Italian, and had some knowledge of Icelandic and Spanish. Quotes It might seem an extremely easy matter to obtain accurate records of food consumed. Experience shows that it is not so. At the foot of the social scale there is a residue of housewives who are incapable of keeping accurate records, even with help and supervision. The work of Dr A. M. Thomson (unpublished) on Gravidity and parity primigravidae shows that those unable to keep records are, almost certainly, worse fed than the more intelligent. In most surveys they swell the proportion of non-cooperators. But in all social and intellectual grades, vigilance is needed. Even highly intelligent scientists have been found grossly inaccurate in attempts to record what they ate the day before (Morrison, Russell & Stevenson, 1949). 1955 Some comments on the national food survey and comparison with the prewar Carnegie survey Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 14 1 86–92 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-nutrition-society/article/some-comments-on-the-national-food-survey-and-comparison-with-the-prewar-carnegie-survey/808EB8A633B8292A43CF2AC211B9E56A A very large number of variables must be considered and either eliminated by matching or allowed for in the plan of any piece of research in nutrition. First the animals, including man: to be taken into account are breed, sex, age, size at birth and at completed growth, rate of growth or of production (milk, egg, meat), stage of reproductive life, previous dietary history, physical environment (e.g., temperature and humidity). Second, in diet there is a great complexity of nutrients. Known to be of importance are about 20 amino acids, 14 inorganic elements each in many different compounds, and 17 vitamins of known structure; of carbohydrates there are 10 sugars and 8 groups of polysaccharides; 14 fatty acids, and as many triglycerides, innumerable pigments and aromatic substances, as well as many injurious and inert components, present in countless different foods. Add to which that a complete longitudinal study of human growth must take about 20 years, of growth in a pig at least 3 years and even in a rat 9 months; and that there is the reproductive span also, and old age beyond that.It is obvious that the number of possible questions is enormous and that no one man or one team in the whole of a lifetime can hope to cover by original research more than a minute part of any nutritional field. 1959 The place of analytical and critical reviews in any growing biological science and the service they may render to research Proceedings of the International Conference on Scientific Information vol. 2 571–588 Washington DC National Academies Press https://jameslindlibrary.org/wp-data/uploads/2014/10/Leitch-1959-WA.pdf Quotes about Isabella Leitch ... Dr Isabella Leitch ... had a profound but often unacknowledged or unrecognizaed influence on nutritional science and scientists. Though a member of the The Nutrition Society Nutrition Society since its formation, she never held office except as an editor of the first three volumes of the British Journal of Nutrition and the first five volumes of the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society Proceedings. She contributed several papers of notable originality to its meetings and in 1979 the Society paid tribute by electing her as an Honorary Member. She was Director of the Commonwealth Bureau of Nutrition in Aberdeen from 1945 until her retirement in 1960; and as a member of staff of the Bureau since its formation was the driving force behind Nutrition Abstracts and Reviews for over 30 years. A. M. Thomson, Obituary Notice. Isabella Leitch (1890–1980) British Journal of Nutrition 45 1 1981 1–4 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/obituary-notice-isabella-leitch-18901980/8768F7809CDFB37EF8D0D2BC8CFCC0DA External links Category:1890 births Category:1980 deaths Category:Feminists from Scotland Category:University of Aberdeen alumni Category:Women born in the 19th century Category:Women scientists from Scotland