Джеймс Кейд: Создатель Gatorade и врач-нефролог

American medical doctor, nephrologist, research scientist, inventor of Gatorade

James Robert Cade (September 26, 1927 – November 27, 2007) was an American physician, university professor, research scientist and inventor. Cade, a native of Texas, earned his bachelor and medical degrees at the University of Texas, and became a professor of medicine and nephrology at the University of Florida. Although Cade engaged in many areas of medical research, he is most widely remembered as the leader of the research team that created the sports drink Gatorade. Gatorade would have significant medical applications for treating dehydration in patients, and has generated over $150 million in royalties for the university. In his later years, Cade became a prominent philanthropist, donating significant sums to charities affiliated with the Lutheran Church, creating scholarships and donating freely to the University of Florida and other colleges and universities, and endowing his own charitable foundations.

Robert Cade was born in San Antonio, Texas, on September 26, 1927. He was a fourth generation Texan. Cade took an early interest in athletics and ran the mile in four minutes, twenty seconds at Brackenridge High School, He graduated from Brackenridge High School in May 1945 and joined the U. S. Navy. He served for three years and was stationed at Naval Medical Research Unit Four in Dublin, Georgia (1 year), the destroyer USS Gherardi (1 1/2 years) and the cruiser USS Rochester. He completed his service in September 1948 with the rank of pharmacist's mate third class. After being discharged from the navy, he enrolled in the University of Texas. He completed four years of undergraduate coursework in two calendar years, and graduated with his bachelor's degree in 1950. He was also a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity while at the University of Texas. In 1953, he married Mary Strasburger, a nurse from Dallas, Texas, whom he had met while he was in medical school. After graduating with his doctor of medicine degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas in 1954, Cade completed his internship at the Saint Louis City Hospital in Saint Louis, Missouri and did his residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas.

In 1965, Cade was approached by Dewayne Douglas, an assistant coach for the Florida Gators football team, about the extreme dehydration faced by Gator football players practicing in the high temperatures and humidity of the Deep South in late summer and early fall. Douglas questioned Cade why his football players did not urinate during practice and games. Dana Shires remembered that "it sort of tasted like toilet bowl cleaner." To make it more palatable, at the suggestion of Cade's wife, the researchers added lemon juice and cyclamate to the original formula of water, salt, sodium citrate, fructose and monopotassium phosphate. during which Cade declared, "Naturally, we called our stuff Gatorade." However, the rehydration drink was first known as "Cade's Ade" and "Cade's Cola" to the Florida Gators football team, and only later became known as "Gatorade." Afterward, Georgia Tech head coach Bobby Dodd told reporters: "We didn't have Gatorade; that made the difference." He initially obtained bank financing and began to produce "Gatorade" through his own business, but later entered into a contract with Stokely Van Camp, Inc. to produce and sell the drink. The Florida Board of Regents, prompted by the U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which had provided Cade with a small grant for his research, asked for the patent rights. Cade refused. After thirty one months of legal wrangling, Cade and the university negotiated a settlement of their dispute in 1972, Cade, for his part, created multiple scholarships and contributed generously to the university from his own royalties over the following years.

Up to 2007, the University of Florida has received over $150 million from its share of the Gatorade royalties. As of 2015, this total has increased to $281 million. Cade and his associates' share of the royalties is undisclosed, the majority of their rights having been sold to Stokely Van Camp. Gatorade, now owned by PepsiCo, is today sold in some eighty countries and over fifty various flavors. While he was surprised by its commercial success as a sports drink, Cade's other research included hypertension, exercise physiology, autism, schizophrenia and kidney disease. Cade was an active, lifelong member of the Lutheran church, and he was recognized by the church with its Wittenberg Award in 1991. He and his wife continued to live in the same Gainesville house that they owned before the financial success of Gatorade. announced in 2010 that it had begun raising funds to construct a new building for the Cade Museum in Gainesville, with a groundbreaking planned for 2015. The museum opened in May 2018. On September 26, 2013, Florida Governor Rick Scott posthumously honored Cade as a "Great Floridian" during a ceremony at the Cade Museum. The award honors those people who made "major contributions to the progress and welfare" of Florida.