Robert Henry Aders Plimmer (25 April 1877 – 18 June 1955) was a British chemist, biochemist and author, who researched protein chemistry, especially the phosphorylation of proteins, and nutrition, particularly vitamins and the nutritional qualities of different proteins. He worked at the physiology department of University College, London (1904–19), latterly as reader in physiological chemistry, briefly headed the biochemistry department at the Rowett Institute of Research in Animal Nutrition in Aberdeen, and then returned to London to hold a chair in the chemistry department of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School (1922–42), and in retirement worked at the British Postgraduate Medical School (1943–55). Plimmer's academic books include the monograph The Chemical Constitution of the Proteins (1908), the textbook Organic and Bio-Chemistry (1910), and the earliest food-composition tabulations relating to British foods (1921). With his wife, Violet Geraldine Plimmer, he published several popular books about nutrition for a general audience, including Vitamins and the Choice of Food (1922) and Food, Health, Vitamins (1925), whose "square meal" chart one reviewer advises "should be hung up over every housekeeper's desk". He is also remembered for his role in the foundation and early years of the Biochemical Society; he was the body's first honorary secretary and treasurer, twice chaired the committee (1922–23 and 1939–40), and was elected an honorary member in 1943. He published a history of the society in 1949 that is considered a valuable source for the history of biochemistry in the UK.
Early life and education Robert Henry Aders was born on 25 April 1877, at Elberfeld in Germany, the eldest son of Bertha Helena Aders, who was German, and Alfred Aders (died 1885), a businessman from Manchester. He was brought up in England, mainly in Surrey. Two years after his father's death, his mother married Henry George Plimmer, a pathologist and microbiologist who was later elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and Robert Aders eventually came to use his stepfather's surname. He attended Dulwich College and then went up to University College, London, studying organic chemistry, where he gained his BSc (1899) and DSc (1902). Before being awarded his DSc degree, he also studied with Carl Graebe at the University of Geneva, and then researched enzymes and protein chemistry for two years under Emil Fischer at the University of Berlin, gaining a PhD (1902) from Berlin. He returned to the UK to become a research student at the Jenner Institute of Preventive Medicine (later the Lister Institute; 1902–4).
Career Plimmer joined the staff of University College in 1904, where he became a fellow (1906), and then assistant professor (1907–12) and reader (1912–19) in physiological chemistry, working in the physiology department under William Bayliss and Ernest Starling. Other collaborators at University College included Frederick Hughes Scott and Marjory Stephenson, in her first research job. With Starling, Plimmer was involved in designing the new Institute of Physiology at University College (opened in 1909). At University College, Plimmer taught physiological chemistry from 1909, and was one of the earliest in Britain to teach advanced biochemistry. During the First World War, he worked for the War Office's Hygiene Directorate and the Army Medical Authorities, with the rank of Captain, performing chemical analysis of foods at the Royal Army Medical College in Millbank, as well as at University College. These results, published in 1921, were the "first official British food composition tables" and, according to a contemporary review, were particularly useful in Britain because they analysed British foods. His obituary in the British Medical Journal states that his work "directly contributed to the national survival". Plimmer moved to Aberdeen in October 1919, to continue this work; there he served as head of the department of biochemistry at the Rowett Institute of Research in Animal Nutrition. He resigned after coming into conflict with the director, John Boyd Orr, over the question of whether the institute should focus predominantly on mineral nutrients. Returning to London, he held the chair of medical chemistry at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, University of London, between January 1922 and his retirement in December 1942, being appointed emeritus professor of chemistry in 1944. He continued to research despite a heavy teaching and administrative burden. After retirement from St Thomas's, he took up a post at the department of biochemistry of the British Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, where he continued to lecture and to research in analytical clinical chemistry until shortly before his death.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
