Minot, George Richards 1885-1950

MINOT, GEORGE RICHARDS 1885-1950

Preparation

George Minot's father, grandfather, and several other members of the family were all outstanding physicians in Boston, Massachusetts. After a private-school education in Boston, Minot graduated from Harvard where he received the B.A. degree in 1908 and the M.D. in 1912. In an era when postgraduate study was still unusual for physicians, he went on to intern at Massachusetts General Hospital and to take a residency at Johns Hopkins, He was especially interested in the relation of diet to disease, but he also studied problems of blood coagulation.

Study of Pernicious Anemia

In 1915 Minot returned to Massachusetts General where his interest in blood coagulation led to a more specific study of pernicious anemia. Minot and his colleagues found that splenectomy resulted in only temporary improvement in patients with the disease.

Influence of Diabetes

Minot began working at the Collis P. Huntington Memorial Hospital in Boston in 1917, where he became chief of the medical service in 1923. In the same year he developed severe diabetes. He pursued a course of rigorous dietary regulation, the only method of controlling the disease known at the time, and insulin became available soon enough to save his life. His personal experience with the importance of diet possibly influenced his pursuit of a dietary treatment of pernicious anemia.

A Cure for Pernicious Anemia

George Hoyt Whippie, pathologist and dean at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, showed that a diet rich in liver was beneficial to dogs rendered anemic by repeated bleeding. Minot invited his associate William Parry Murphy to join him in an effort to test the benefits to sufferers of pernicious anemia of a diet containing as much as half a pound of liver a day. In 1926 they were able to report that such a diet led to rapid improvement. The following year, along with Edwin J. Cohn, professor of physical chemistry at Harvard, they developed an effective liver extract for oral use. Whipple, Minot, and Murphy received the 1934 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their discovery of liver therapy in anemias.

Later Career

In 1928 Minot became director of the Thorndike Memorial Laboratory and chief of the Fourth (Harvard) Medical Service at the Boston City Hospital. In addition to doing research, he also taught at the Harvard Medical School. One of his junior colleagues at Thorndike, William D. Castle, built upon Minot's research to show that the cause of pernicious anemia was the inability to absorb the vitamin B12. Other associates made significant contributions in several fields, including the treatment of hemophilia.

Lasting Influence

In addition to publishing some 150 papers, principally about blood disorders and the effects of nutritional deficiencies, Minot also found time to stimulate and encourage his students. By 1956 sixteen graduates of the Thorndike or its affiliated medical services held distinguished positions abroad, and nearly fifty more held professorships in American medical schools.

Sources:

William H. Crosby, "Pernicious Anemia—Study and Therapy," JAMA, 250 (23 December 1983): 3336-3338;

George R. Minot and William P. Murphy, "Treatment of Pernicious Anemia by a Special Diet" JAMA, 87 (4 August 1926): 470-476;

Allen B. Weisse, Medical Odysseys (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1991), pp. 112-124.