Samuel Cate Prescott:—Pioneer Food Technologist—Gifted Teacher—-Poet, Humanist—Mr. Mit—Friend to Many

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the life of Samuel Cate Prescott, which spans an era from that when the term “microbe” was first used by Sedillot in 1878 to that beyond the discovery of DNA in 1953. Samuel Cate Prescott was born of an old New England family in the rural village of South Hampton, New Hampshire, on April 15, 1872. Dr. Prescott attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1890 to 1894, obtaining his Bachelor's of Science degree in chemistry in 1894. Immediately after graduation from MIT, Dr. Prescott became bacteriologist and assistant chemist at the Sewage Purification Works of the City of Worcester, Massachusetts, for five months. In 1917, prior to America's entry into World War I, Dr. Prescott entered the military service as a major in the Sanitary Corps of the U. S. Army, where he was the in charge of research and dehydration of food and was an inspector of quartermaster stores in large training camps. Dr. Prescott's work on refrigeration as a method of food preservation is indicative of the catholicity of his interests as a scientist and technologist. Dr. Prescott, more than any other individual was probably responsible for the first two Food Technology Conferences at MIT in 1937 and 1940, which were the basis for the foundation of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). In addition to the two highly prized awards of the Institute of Food Technologists, Dr. Prescott received two honorary doctorates. Dr. Prescott became the head of the Department of Biology at MIT in 1922 after Sedgwick passed away.