Career
In the mid-1960s he did research on cholera and other diarrheal diseases at the Johns Hopkins International Center for Medical Research and Training in Calcutta, India. During the Bangladesh war for independence he led the effort by the Johns Hopkins Center that demonstrated the dramatic life-saving effectiveness of oral rehydration therapy when cholera broke out in 1971 among refugees from East Bengal (now Bangladesh) who had sought asylum in West Bengal. In the mid-1980s and early 1990s he was a medical officer in the Diarrheal Disease Control Programme of the World Health Organization. In 2002 Doctor Nathaniel Pierce, Doctor David Nalin and Doctor Norbert Hirschhorn, were awarded the first Pollin Prize in Pediatric Research for their contributions to the discovery and implementation of oral rehydration therapy.
Oral rehydration therapy is an alternative to intravenous rehydration therapy for preventing and treating dehydration from diarrhea when intravenous therapy is not available or feasible.
Oral rehydration therapy is calculated by the World Health Organization to have saved the lives of over 60 million persons.
