Audrey Cahn

Audrey Josephine Cahn (17 October 1905 – 1 April 2008) was an Australian microbiologist and nutritionist.[1]

Audrey Cahn
Born
Audrey Josephine Cahn

17 October 1905
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Died1 April 2008 (aged 102)
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
EducationUniversity of Melbourne
OccupationMicrobiologist, nutritionalist

The daughter of Professor William Alexander Osborne and Ethel Elizabeth Goodson, a medical practitioner and industrial hygienist, she was born Audrey Josephine Osborne in Melbourne and grew up on the campus of the University of Melbourne.[2] She earned a Bachelor of Agricultural Science at the University in 1929 and, later, received a diploma in dietetics. She first worked as a microbiologist and food analyst for Kraft.[3] In 1930, she married Leslie Cahn, an architect.[2] She was employed as chief dietician at St Vincent's Hospital, at the Victorian Mental Hygiene Department and at the Royal Perth Hospital. During World War II, she was chief dietician at the Heidelberg Military Hospital. From 1947 to 1959, she was a dietetics lecturer at the University of Melbourne; from 1959 until 1968, when she retired, she was chief lecturer in nutrition and applied dietetics at the University.[1]

She was a founding member of the Dietetics Association. Cahn was among the first experts to recommend reducing fat intake and substituting polyunsaturated fatty acids for saturated fats.[3] She helped conduct a longitudinal study of child growth in Melbourne (1954–1971) which allowed the growth patterns of Australian children to be compared with children in Britain and the United States.[2]

Cahn died in Canberra at the age of 102.[1]

Audrey Cahn Street in the Canberra suburb of Macgregor was named in her honour.[4]

References
  1. "Cahn, Audrey Josephine (1905–2008)". Encyclopedia of Australian Science.
  2. Flesch, Juliet (December 2012). "The ones that got away" (PDF). University of Melbourne Collections (11).
  3. "A scientist ahead of her times". The Age. 12 May 2008.
  4. "Public Place Names (Macgregor) Determination 2011" (PDF). Australian Capital Territory.
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