Niklaus Gerber was a Swiss dairy chemist and industrialist. He was born in 1850 in Thun

Thun

Thun is a municipality in the administrative district of Thun in the canton of Bern in Switzerland with about 42,136 inhabitants , as of 1 January 2006....

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

. He attended the University of Bern and University of Zurich

University of Zurich

The University of Zurich , located in the city of Zurich, is the largest university in Switzerland, with over 25,000 students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of theology, law, medicine and a new faculty of philosophy....

, studied chemistry in Paris and Munich and spent 2 years at the Swiss-American Milk Co. in Little Falls, New York

Little Falls (town), New York

Little Falls is a town in Herkimer County, New York, United States. The population was 1,544 at the 2000 census. The town is named after a waterfall located nearby.The Town of Little Falls has on its eastern end a small city called Little Falls...

.

In 1887, Gerber founded United Dairies of Zurich. At this time, the quality of raw milk was poor due to lack of hygiene. Further, dishonest dairymen would dilute raw milk with water and no means existed to effectively test the milk. In 1892, Dr. Gerber developed a method of analyzing fat content in milk in a relatively fast, simple and reliable manner for the time. Niklaus obtained a patent on this "Acid-Butyrometry," which came to be known as the "Gerber Method

Gerber method

The Gerber Method is a primary and historic chemical test to determine the fat content of milk and other substances. The Gerber Method is the primary testing method in Europe and much of the world. The fairly similar Babcock test is used primarily in the United States, although the Gerber Method...

". Although the method was originally developed for use only by United Dairies, Dr. Gerber began to sell the equipment to milk processors globally and created a separate company to commerialise the Gerber Method.

In 1904, Gerber founded the "Dr. N. Gerber's Acid-Butyrometry Ltd., Leipzig", which later merged with another entity to create "Dr. N. Gerber's m.b.H Zurich and Leipzig" to produce and develop the Gerber instruments.

Gerber died in 1914.

The Gerber method remains in wide use throughout much of the world. The Babcock test

Babcock test

The Babcock test is the first inexpensive and practical test factories could use to determine the fat content of milk.-Motivation:Until the 1890s, dishonest farmers could water down their milk or remove some cream before selling it to the factories because milk was paid for by volume...

is similar and is more widely used in the United States.