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Louise A. [Giblin] Sallaway (December 24, 1895 – September 15, 1973) was a female chemist who significantly contributed to the baby formula Similac.

Born in 1895, Louise graduated from Simmons College in 1917 with a degree in science.^[1] Just a year later, Louise co-published two articles with chemist Dr. Bosworth at Boston Floating Hospital, which is now part of Tufts Medical Center. The articles, entitled “Studies of Infant Feeding” and “The Casein of Human Milk” detail their search for a substitute to breast milk.^[2] The duo repeatedly experimented with the ratios of oils, calcium, and salts to proteins and carbohydrates. After 200 tests, the formula was marketed and bottled in 1924. In 1927, the formula was named Similac, noting its similarly to lactation.

Sometime between the 200 tests from 1919 and 1924, Louise moved to New York where she received a Masters in Chemistry from Columbia University in 1925.^[3] She was the first woman admitted to Kappa Mu Sigma, “a society for graduate students in chemistry” that aimed to “raise the standards of professional chemistry among women by insisting on the importance of (graduate) chemical training for a professional career.”^[4] While a member of Kappa Mu Sigma in 1927, she protested the New York City section of the American Chemical Society because of their exclusion of women at the dinners held at the Chemists Club by surveying forty-five female section members of their interest of admittance and attendance at the dinners, of which the majority responded favorably. Her efforts, however, did not seem to have a substantial impact.

Louise was working toward her PhD when she gave up academia for marriage and raising her two sons. She died in 1973, but is remembered for her significant contribution which has nourished millions of infants around the world.

References

1. Jump up^ Simmons College Reunion Book. 32nd Reunion of the Class of 1917. 1949.
2. Jump up^ Studies of Infant Feeding. Bosworth and Giblin, from Boston Floating Hospital Laboratories and the Pediatric Department of Harvard Medical School. March 28, 1918. & The Casein of Human Milk. Bosworth and Giblin, from Boston Floating Hospital Laboratories. May 28, 1918.
3. Jump up^ Columbia University Archives.
4. Jump up^ Struggles and Strategies to 1940: Women Scientists in America Rossiter, Margaret W. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, p. 301. & “Kappa Mu Sigma, National Directory and Constitution, 1920-1927,” pamphlet in Florence Siebert Paper, American Philosophical Society.