The Babcock test is the first inexpensive and practical test factories could use to determine the fat content of milk. Until the 1890's dishonest farmers could water down their milk or remove some cream before selling it to the factories. Milk was paid for by volume. Honest farmers as well as those that produced naturally rich milk were not being compensated fairly.
Babcock researched the problem at the University of Wisconsin and developed the following process:
Measure milk into graduated test tube. Add sulpheric acid. Centrifuge. Measure fat which will be floating on top of liquid in the test tube.
Key to this process is that everything in milk except the fat dissolves in sulpheric acid. The fat floats to the top. The centrifuge ensures complete seperation with no bubbles in the fat, and the fat content can be measured using the graduations on the test tube and knowing the initial amount of milk used.
Afterwards it was much easier for a dairy operation to not only compensate farmers fairly, but to produce a consistant produce that consumers could depend on.
Professor Babcock did not patent his invention considering himself an agent of Wisconsin working for the welfare of Wisconsin.
- The Babcocktest, which he developed was a total success; simple and reliable, it not only tested milk quality but also made it possible to evaluate cattle, fix standards for municipal milk inspection, and set fair milk prices according to quality grading, which discouraged further watering or skimming of milk by farmers.
Babcock also helped prepare the way for recognition of vitamin A by studying "hidden hunger" in animals.
New York Legislature honored Babcock with a bill to preserve his birthplace, the farm at Babcock Hill, Bridgewater.
Test to determine the amount of butterfat in milk by centrifuging a mixture of equal parts of milk and sulphuric acid.
Babcock's experimental studies in the food requirements of animals paved the way for the work of the American chemist Elmer Verner McCollum (1879-1967) on vitamin A, and it was in "his" laboratory at the university the biochemist Harry Steenbock discovered vitamin D, the sunlight vitamin.
Babcock invented an apparatus to determine the viscosity of liquids.
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