Emma Kohman and the early history of nutritional edema

Nutritional edema is a generalized edematous condition that afflicted whole populations of central European countries during World War 1--and other areas since that time--with a mortality rate of about 50%. An analogous condition in white rats was produced by Emma Kohman as a graduate student in Chicago (1916 to 1919). She fed the rats a diet similar to that consumed by human subjects but prevented or cured nutritional edema in the animals by feeding them good quality protein in suitable amounts. Her work, verified by others, was of immense practical significance and helped establish the value of animal experiments in the study of human diseases. Ms. Kohman gave up a scientific career to be a homemaker when she married in 1919.