Lafayette Benedict Mendel

Lafayette Benedict Mendel (born Feb. 5, 1872, Delhi, N.Y., U.S.—died Dec. 9, 1935, New Haven, Conn.) was an American biochemist whose discoveries concerning the value of vitamins and proteins helped establish modern concepts of nutrition. A professor of physiological chemistry at Yale from 1903 to 1935, he worked with the American biochemist Thomas Osborne to determine why rats could not survive on diets of pure carbohydrates, fats, and proteins alone. Simultaneously with the American biochemists...