Archibald Edward Garrod

Archibald Garrod

Archibald Edward Garrod (1857 - 1936) English physician, son of Alfred Garrod, who pioneered the study of inborn errors of metabolism. From the study of patients with alkaptonuria, he came to the conclusion that certain mysterious diseases can be inherited through successive generation of families according to Mendelian laws. In 1908, he wrote a famous book (which he expanded in 1923), Inborn Errors of Metabolism, where he described four disorders (Garrod's tetrad) alkaptonuria, cystinuria, pentosuria, and albinism, all caused by an inherited defect in certain metabolic pathways. He also formulated the "one gene, one enzyme" hypothesis and described the recessive nature of most inherited enzyme defects.  His daughter, Dorothy Garrod, was a pioneering archeologist, famed for her work on the Paleolithic period.

Alfred Baring Garrod

Alfred Garrod

Alfred Baring Garrod (1819 - 1907) English physician. He was the first to discover an abnormal increase in the amount of uric acid in the blood of patients with gout. He was also the first to propose using lithium to treat gout, also recommending it to treat mood disorders hypothesizing that gout may cause mental disturbances. Garrod is credited with coining the term rheumatoid arthritis which he firmly established as a separate disorder. In his old age, he served as physician-extraordinary to Queen Victoria. Physician Archibald Edward Garrod and the vertebrate zoologist Alfred Henry Garrod were his sons.

Sir William Jenner

William Jenner

Sir William Jenner (1815 - 1898) English physician, primarily known for making the distinction between typhoid and typhus as separate diseases, which until then were considered manifestations of the same illness. He was royal physician to Queen Victoria and as a mark of her appreciation for his services in treating Prince Albert's typhoid, she made him a baronet. As a doctor at the Hospital for Sick Children at Great Ormond street, he was much loved by the children, in spite of his deeply unprepossessing appearance. Jenner was a workaholic, and is known to have quipped "Amusements! My amusement is pathological anatomy!" when repeatedly asked about his leisurely pursuits. As a physician he had immense reputation and was widely consulted, and had amassed a large fortune by the time of his death.

Pieter Klazes Pel

Pieter Klazes Pel (1852 - 1919) Dutch physician and professor of internal medicine. He came from a generation of physiciains, both his father and grand-father had been doctors, and his sons also went on to become doctors. Pel is widely known for his description of the Pel-Ebstein fever, a cyclical fever that occurs rarely in patients suffering from Hodgkin's lymphoma. He also described the Pel's crises, an ocular crises occuring in tabes dorsalis, causing intense paroxysmal neuralgic pain in the eyes and nearby ophthalmic areas. Pel also was a renowned medical teacher, who shared the opinion of his other great contemporary Sir William Osler, that medicine is best taught and learned at the bedside rather in classrooms. His lectures were well attended and enjoyed by students, one of his famous quotes being "When someone tells me that an animal on four feet is walking around in the yard next door, it could be a small tiger or elephant, but I would still think of a cat or a dog."

Gerhard Domagk

Gerhard Domagk

Gerhard Domagk (1895 - 1964) German pathologist and bacteriologist, credited with the discovery of Sulfonamidochrysoidine (a sulphonamide marketed under the brand name Prontosil), the first commercially available chemotherapeutic drug for treating infections, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1939. Domagk's daughter was the first to receive the drug when he tried it out on her during a serious bout of streptococcal infection curing her of the illness and thereby establishing its potency. Domagk was forced to refuse the Nobel prize by the Nazi regime, and he was even arrested by the Gestapo for a week. Domagk also went on to discover other effective drugs against infectious agents like thiosemicarbazones & isoniazid, both effective in the treatment of tuberculosis. Domagk's final goal was to discover a chemotherapeutic agent which would effectively combat and conquer cancer, for which he devoted much of his final years of life.

Alexander Wiener

Alexander Wiener

Alexander Wiener (1907 - 1976) American physician, noted for his contributions to forensic medicine and serology. He discovered the Rh factor with Karl Landsteiner, and helped develop the exchange transfusion for treating erythroblastosis fetalis or hemolytic disease of the newborn. His work in the later area was supplemented by the independent work of Philip Levine on the same disease. Alexander Wiener also used his extensive knowledge of blood serology in forensic cases to solve disputed paternity suits. His work in this field was so impressive that he was made an honorary member of the Mystery Writers of America for his contribution to solving crimes. Alexander Wiener was a lifelong resident of the city of New York.

Karl Landsteiner

Karl Landsteiner

Karl Landsteiner (1868 - 1943) Austrian biologist and physician, noted for his development of the modern system of blood group classification, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1930. Together with the American physician, Alexander Wiener,  he discovered the Rh factor in 1937. He was also the discoverer of the polio virus, along with Erwin Popper in 1909. Landsteiner's father was a famous Vienna journalist who died when he was 6, which made him form a strong association with his mother, whose death mask he kept in his room till the day he died. Landsteiner moved to the USA in 1923, accepting an invitation from Simon Flexner, as economic conditions at the turn of World War I in Austria were no longer conducive to research. Landsteiner was much devoted to his work, and he is famously said to have died holding "a pipette in his hand".

Ludwik Hirszfeld

Ludwik Herszfeld

Ludwik Herszfeld (1884 - 1954) Polish microbiologist and serologist, who along with colleague Emil von Dungern, a German internist, discovered the inheritance of ABO blood type. He was also the first to suggest the ABO naming for Karl Landsteiner's discovery of blood groups, which were originally named I, II, III and IV. Herszfeld also discovered the bacillus Salmonella paratyphi C, today called Salmonella herszfeldi. As a serologist, he was also the first to forsee a serological conflict between mother and developing fetus, which was confirmed by the discovery of Rhesus factor.

Rudolf Weigl

Rudolf Weigl

Rudolf Weigl (1883 - 1957) Famous Polish biologist, who invented the first effective vaccine against epidemic typhus. He founded the Weigl Institue in Lviv (now in Ukraine), where he carried out most of his research. When the Nazis occupied Poland during World War II, they were impressed by his research and asked him to make typhus vaccines for them. Some of the vaccines were smuggled into concentration camps and thus helped to protect the inmates from typhus, which was a major problem during WW II. Though Weigl developed the vaccine quite early, he hesitated to use it on a wide scale because he was not a doctor of medicine, and considered that much experimental studies had to be done before introducing it on a mass scale. His typhus vaccination was first widely used in China by Belgian christian missionaries, which bought him wide fame. Weigl gave shelter and helped many underground Polish intellectuals during the Nazi occupation.

Charles Nicolle

Charles Nicolle

Charles Nicolle (1866 - 1936) French bacteriologist, famed for his research on a variety of infectious diseases, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1928 for his discovery that lice were the vector involved in the transmission of epidemic typhus. He also discovered the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, made contributions to the control of Malta fever in the form of a vaccine and also discovered the mode of transmission of tick fever. Besides being a scientist, Charles Nicolle was also a writer of fantasy stories and philosophy.

Richard Asher

Richard Asher

Richard Asher (1912 - 1969) British physician, best known for his succinct and refreshingly provoking articles on various medical subjects. He famously said that many clinical notions were accepted because they were comforting rather than because there is any evidence to support them. He described and named the Manchausen syndrome and his article on myxedematous madness bought into light the influence of the thyroid on brain function to a large number of physicians. He is also remembered for arguing that Pel-Ebstien fever is an example of a condition that exists only because it has a name. His anothologies on medical writing, particularly Talking Sense, are still described as one of the finest examples of medical writing. Asher suffered from depression in later life and reportedly died from suicide.