Victor King Chesnut (1867-1938), a Poisonous Plant Pioneer

摘要

Victor King Chesnut was born on 28 June 1867 to John Andrew Chesnut and Henrietta Sarah King at Nevada City in the gold mining region of California shortly after the gold rush. The family moved to Oakland, California where he attended public schools.He was trained as a botanist and as a chemist at the University of California at Berkeley where he got a BS degree in 1890. Later he acquired some training at the University of Chicago and Columbian University which is now George Washington University. He taught chemistry at the University of California and at Montana State College (MSC) which later became Montana State University (MSU). In 1894 he was the first person employed full time to research plant poisonings by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in the Bureau of Plant Industry under the supervision of the botanist Frederick V. Coville. One project was to interview American Indians of Mendocino County, California regarding their use of plants in preparation for displays at the World Fair in Chicago (Chesnut, 1902).