{{Short description|English nutritionist (1887–1968)}}{{Infobox scientist | name = Margaret Hume | image = Margaret Hume.jpg | caption = Margaret Hume at Newnham College in 1909 | birth_date = 1887 | death_date = 1968 | fields = Botany<br>Nutrition | workplaces = Botany School, Cambridge<br>University of the Cape of Good Hope<br>Lister Institute for Preventative Medicine | alma_mater = Newnham College, Cambridge | awards = Bathurst studentship }}
'''Eleanor Muriel Margaret Hume''' (often known as '''Margaret''' or '''Margot Hume''', 1887–1968) was an English botanist, nutritionist and science editor. After lecturing in botany in South Africa and England, she studied nutrition at the Lister Institute of Preventative Medicine and wrote for and edited several nutrition journals.
== Education and early career == Educated at Eastbourne Ladies' College, Hume studied the natural sciences tripos at Newnham College, Cambridge, receiving a first class pass in Part II in 1910.<ref name=":0">{{Citation |title=Tansley's Dream |date=2017 |work=Freud in Cambridge |pages=7–56 |editor-last=Forrester |editor-first=John |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/freud-in-cambridge/tansleys-dream/AE8D9CB487FDB3658C05E84B06F2BCE1 |access-date=2024-09-11 |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/9781139020862.003 |isbn=978-0-521-86190-8 |editor2-last=Cameron |editor2-first=Laura|url-access=subscription }}</ref> She then received a Bathurst studentship to continue her studies, working at the Botany School on her first publications, including a paper engaging with the graft hybrid controversy which was the focus of William Bateson.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hume |first=E. M. Margaret |date=1912 |title=The Histology of the Sieve Tubes of Pteridium aquilinum, with some Notes on Marsilia quadrifolia and Lygodiumdi chotomum |url=https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/235541/The |journal=Annals of Botany |language=en |volume=os-26 |issue=2 |pages=573–587 |doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.aob.a089401 |issn=1095-8290}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hume |first=Margaret |date=1913 |title=On the Presence Op Connecting Threads in Graft Hybrids |url=https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8137.1913.tb05696.x |journal=New Phytologist |language=en |volume=12 |issue=6 |pages=216–221 |doi=10.1111/j.1469-8137.1913.tb05696.x |bibcode=1913NewPh..12..216H |issn=0028-646X|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Holmes |first=Matthew |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v2wJEQAAQBAJ&dq=margaret+Hume+bathurst&pg=PT106 |title=The Graft Hybrid: Challenging Twentieth-Century Genetics |date=2024-04-16 |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press |isbn=978-0-8229-9008-6 |language=en}}</ref> She also worked on galia under the supervision of Arthur Tansley.<ref name=":0" />
In 1913, Hume worked as lecturer in botany at the South African College at the University of the Cape of Good Hope, returning to England in 1916 to work in munitions.<ref name=":1">Forrester (2017), p. 50.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Lucy Wills (1888-1964), the life and research of an adventurous independent woman. |url=https://www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/lucy-wills-1888-1964-the-life-and-research-of-an-adventurous-independent-woman/ |access-date=2024-09-11 |website=The James Lind Library |language=en-GB}}</ref> She delivered lectures in biology at University College, London in 1918.<ref name=":1" />
== Lister Institute == thumb|Staff of the Lister Institute in 1933. Hume is fourth from left in the front row. In 1919 she joined the Lister Institute of Preventative Medicine in London, where she would remain until 1959.<ref>Forrester (2017), p. 52.</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Copping |first=A. M. |date=1970 |title=Eleanor Margaret Hume |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/eleanor-margaret-hume/A51B0AA2EDF478E4E482F6DDF8DF4F55 |journal=British Journal of Nutrition |language=en |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=1 |doi=10.1079/BJN19700003 |issn=1475-2662}}</ref> The Institute studied the preventative effects of nutrition. For example, Hume conducted preliminary research in a foundling hospital in Vienna which contributed to Harriette Chick's proof that rickets was caused by deficiencies in diet rather than by microbes.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chick |first=D. H. |date=1976 |title=Study of rickets in Vienna 1919-1922 |journal=Medical History |volume=20 |issue=1 |pages=41–51 |doi=10.1017/s0025727300021785 |issn=0025-7273 |pmc=1081690 |pmid=765649}}</ref>
During her time at the Lister Institute, Hume published on nutrition and its impact on medical conditions in medical and scientific journals including the British Journal of Nursing, The Practitioner, the Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps and the Biochemical Journal. Her specialisms were the vitamins A and D, and she organised co-operative studies for international standards for vitamins.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last= |first= |date=1938 |title=Lister Institute Report |url=https://www.bmj.com/content/1/4042/1379 |journal=Br Med J |language=en |volume=1 |issue=4042 |pages=1379–1380 |doi=10.1136/bmj.1.4042.1379 |issn=0007-1447|url-access=subscription }}</ref> She was also a member of the Accessory Food Factors Committee.<ref name=":2" /> Hume, Chick, and virologist Marjorie MacFarlane wrote a history of the Lister Institute which was published in 1971.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Chick |first1=Harriette |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y48N0AEACAAJ |title=War on disease: a history of the Lister Institute |last2=Hume |first2=Margaret |last3=MacFarlane |first3=Marjorie |date=1971 |publisher=Andre Deutsch |language=en}}</ref>
== Editorial work == An original member of the Nutrition Society, she was joint editor of the first five volumes of its ''Proceedings'', and was on the ''British Journal of Nutrition'' and the ''Proceedings of the Nutrition Society'' from 1947 to 1959. She was also on the editorial staff of ''Nutrition Abstracts and Reviews''.
She died in 1968.<ref name=":2" />
== References == <!-- Inline citations added to your article will automatically display here. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:REFB for instructions on how to add citations. --> {{reflist}}
== External links ==
* [https://research.amanote.com/publication/search?author=Eleanor%20Margaret%20Hume&page=1 Publications by Eleanor Margaret Hume] at Amanote Research * [https://wellcomecollection.org/concepts/yhhkpzjm Publications by Margaret Hume] at Wellcome Collection
{{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Hume, Margaret}} Category:1887 births Category:1968 deaths Category:Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge Category:20th-century English women scientists Category:20th-century English botanists Category:British nutritionists Category:20th-century English women educators Category:20th-century English educators Category:20th-century British women biologists Category:English women biologists