Minot and Murphy, American Medical Researchers
Minot (left) and Murphy seen here reading the announcement that they, along with Dr. George H. Whipple, would share the Nobel Prize for Medicine. George Richards Minot (1885-1950) was an American medical researcher. Among his interests were leucaemia, disorders of the lymphatic tissues and polycythaemia, but his most important contributions to knowledge were made in his studies of anemia. He shared the 1934 Nobel Prize with George Hoyt Whipple and William P. Murphy for their pioneering work on pernicious anemia. A severe form of anemia most often affecting older adults, caused by failure of the stomach to absorb vitamin B 12 and characterized by abnormally large red blood cells, gastrointestinal disturbances, and lesions of the spinal cord. He died at the age of 64. William Parry Murphy (1892-1987) was an American physician and medical researcher. In 1924, Murphy bled dogs to make them anemic and then fed them various substances to gauge their improvement. He discovered that ingesting large amounts of liver seemed to restore anemia more quickly of all foods. Minot and Whipple then set about to chemically isolate the curative substance. These investigations showed that iron in the liver was responsible for curing anemia from bleeding. The active ingredient was not iron, but a water-soluble extract containing a new substance. From this extract, chemists were able to isolate vitamin B12 from the liver. The knowledge that raw liver and its extracts treated pernicious anemia (previously a terminal disease) was a major advance in medicine. He died at the age of 95.
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