Background
Alfred Fabian Hess was born on October 9, 1875 in New York City, New York, United States. He was the son of Selmar Hess, a publisher of lithographic reproductions of paintings, and Josephine (Solomon) Hess.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
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Alfred Fabian Hess was born on October 9, 1875 in New York City, New York, United States. He was the son of Selmar Hess, a publisher of lithographic reproductions of paintings, and Josephine (Solomon) Hess.
After preparatory training at Sachs's Collegiate Institute, Hess entered Harvard University, where he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. in 1897.
In 1901 he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. For two years and a half he was an intern at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, then for two further years he studied in Prague, Vienna, and Berlin.
He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by the University of Michigan.
Upon his return to the United States Hess was for a short time on the staff of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, then he began the practice of medicine in New York City. From the outset of his medical practice Hess exhibited the attitude of the scientific investigator.
During the earlier years of his professional career he studied in turn the method of spread of tuberculosis and the incidence of tubercle bacilli in New York City milk. He was active in efforts to improve the quality of market milk, and he urged the pasteurization of cream for butter manufacture as a measure for preventing the spread of tuberculosis. Among other researches of his earlier years were those relating to infant digestion, infantile diarrhea, icterus neonatorum, congenital obliteration of the bile ducts, pancreatic ferments in infants, mumps, and chicken-pox.
His great contribution to pathology and preventive and clinical medicine began with his studies on scurvy in infants from 1914 onwards. He was the first to study the blood in scurvy and to give a clear account of its properties. He devised a capillary resistance test and showed that the hemorrhagic tendency in scurvy is due to fragility of the capillaries rather than to abnormal composition of the blood. He carefully reëxamined the views of others concerning dietetic therapy, and, inspired by the classic investigations of Holst and Froelich on scurvy in guinea-pigs (1912), he set aside all controversy concerning the prophylactic and therapeutic value of raw vegetable foods in relation to scurvy in infants. Scurvy in infants increased greatly following the adoption of city ordinances requiring the pasteurization of market milk.
Hess assumed vigorous leadership in educating the medical profession concerning the merits of clean, pasteurized milk formulas supplemented with suitable antiscorbutic substances. He demonstrated that substitution of mashed potato for barley in infant feeding resulted in prompt disappearance of scorbutic symptoms. He also popularized the use of fresh orange juice as a supplement to the formulas for infants.
His high professional standing fostered the prompt adoption of the feeding technique that he recommended, and his studies on scurvy constituted an outstanding contribution to public health, for his work with infants led to immediate recognition of the need by adults of a constant supply of the antiscorbutic vitamin. His book, Scurvy, Past and Present (1920), is one of the classics in medical literature.
In 1917 Hess began the study of the incidence, prevention, and cure of rickets among Negro children in New York City. With his singular acumen he tested all significant suggestions to be found in medical literature by experiments on animals and by clinical studies on infants. Cod-liver oil had long been employed in the treatment of rickets, but the views of distinguished pediatricians differed as to its efficacy. Hess employed X-ray examinations to establish the reliability of cod-liver oil as a prophylactic and therapeutic agent in this disease, which was all but universal among infants in temperate regions. He made a careful study of the seasonal variation in the incidence of rickets and demonstrated in his own practice that exposure of infants to sunlight as well as ultraviolet light prevented or brought about the healing of rickets. He tested a current hypothesis that rickets was caused by vitamin A deficiency and found no relation between this vitamin and the disease. When, in 1922, the existence of a specific antirachitic vitamin was demonstrated by Baltimore investigators, Hess proceeded promptly to fit this new observation into the scheme which demanded recognition of the therapeutic value of cod-liver oil, the protective effect of light, and the seasonal variation in the occurrence of rickets. His reflections led him to test the effect of exposure of foodstuffs to ultra-violet rays, and he was able to show clearly that the irradiation of certain foodstuffs caused the formation of the antirachitic vitamin D. This discovery he announced in June 1924.
Hess promptly followed up the discovery of the activation of foodstuffs by light and soon traced the precursor, or provitamin D, to the sterol fraction of the fatty material extractable from foods. In cooperation with Adolf Windaus he had a part in the identification of the sterol ergosterol, as provitamin D (1927). In 1929 he published Rickets, Including Osteomalacia and Tetany, in which he discussed the history of thought, experiment, and clinical experience relating to calcium and phosphorus metabolism. This book, like his volume on scurvy, is a monument of sound scholarship.
Hess died of heart disease in his fifty-ninth year.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
Hess was a member of the American Pediatric Society and the Association of American Physicians.
On October 12, 1904, Hess married Sarah Straus, the daughter of Isador Straus. They had two daughters, Eleanor and Margaret, and one son, Alfred.