THE University of Michigan was one of the first American universities to recognize the importance of physiological chemistry, chemistry as applied to the living organism in health and disease, as a separate branch of chemistry. In 1883 Victor Clarence Vaughan (Mount Pleasant College [Mo.] '72, Ph.D. Michigan '76, '78m, LL.D. ibid. '00), at that time Assistant Professor of Physiological Chemistry, was appointed Professor of Physiological and Pathological Chemistry and Associate Professor of Therapeutics and Materia Medica (R.P., 1881-86, p. 360). Vaughan, later Dean of the Department of Medicine and Surgery, was the first man to hold a professorship in physiological chemistry in a medical faculty in this country. Under the able leadership of Vaughan and of his pupil, Frederick George Novy ('86, Sc.D. '90, '91m, LL.D. Cincinnati '20), the subject was developed at the University as a part of the offerings of the combined Department of Bacteriology, Physiological Chemistry, and Hygiene. (For a discussion of the developments prior to 1922, see Part V: Administration and Curriculums and Department of Bacteriology .)
After the retirement of Dr. Vaughan in 1921, the feeling that the work in physiological chemistry, in view of its rising importance, could hardly be kept in the position of an adjunct to other subjects (P.R., 1921-22, p. 88) led to the establishment of a separate Department of Physiological Chemistry by the Regents at their meeting of May 26, 1922. Howard Bishop Lewis (Yale '08, Ph.D. ibid. '13), of the University of Illinois, was appointed Professor of Physiological Chemistry to take charge of the new department. He had received his graduate training in physiological chemistry under Professors R. H. Chittenden and L. B. Mendel in the Sheffield Laboratory of Physiological Chemistry of Yale University and had taught in the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania. In 1935, with the approval of the executive committee of the Medical School, the name Department of Physiological Chemistry was changed to Department of Biological Chemistry. It was felt that the broader term "biological" was more in keeping with the recent developments in this branch of chemistry.
The chief responsibility of the department, aside from research, has been the conduct of the courses in biological