George Whipple was a renowned pathologist, physician, biomedical researcher, educator and administrator. He became known for his discoveries, together with George Richards Minot and William Parry Murphy, concerning liver therapy in cases of anemia, for which the scientists shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1934.
Background
George Whipple was born on August 28, 1878, in Ashland, New Hampshire, United States. He was a son of Ashley Cooper Whipple, a general practitioner, and Frances Anna (Hoyt) Whipple. George's paternal grandfather was also a physician and President of the New Hampshire Medical Society.
Whipple’s father died of typhoid fever just two years after the birth of his son, and Whipple and his sister Ashley were brought up by their mother and grandmothers.
Education
At the age of fourteen, in 1892, Whipple entered Phillips Academy Andover, enrolling at Yale College (now Yale University) as a premedical student four years later, where, in 1900, George received a Bachelor of Arts degree. At Yale, he was a star baseball player and was on the gymnastics and rowing teams, as well as an outstanding student. Though versed in the Humanities in these years, he had always been attracted by Science and Mathematics.
In 1901, Whipple entered Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, graduating with a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1905.
Also, George received several Honorary Doctor of Science degrees from different educational establishments, including Colgate University in 1927, Wesleyan University in 1935, Trinity College, Hartford, in 1936, University of Chicago in 1952 and others.
After graduation with high standing in 1900 from Yale College (present-day Yale University), Whipple spent a year, teaching and coaching at Dr. Holbrook Military School in Ossining, New York. During the period from 1901 till 1905, when he was a student of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, he earned his way with a paying instructorship at the same school.
Initially, Whipple considered going into pediatrics, but upon receiving his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1905, instead joined the Johns Hopkins staff as an assistant in pathology, working under the renowned pathologist William Henry Welch. It was as a twenty-nine-year-old assistant, performing an autopsy on a missionary doctor, that Whipple made his first notable medical contribution, describing a rare condition in the intestinal tissues, which has since come to be called Whipple’s disease. The years 1907-1908, spent by George at a hospital in the Panama Canal Zone, led to further notable advances in malaria and tuberculosis research.
When he returned to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as an assistant in pathology in 1908, Whipple turned his attention to studies in liver damage and the way, in which liver cells repair themselves. Studies with dogs led Whipple to realize the importance of bile, a substance, manufactured in the liver by the breakdown of hemoglobin, a complex pigment in red corpuscles. In normal concentrations, bile helps to break down fats during digestion, but can produce jaundice, when present in excessive amounts.
Beginning his assistant professorship at Johns Hopkins in 1911, Whipple came to focus on the interrelationship of bile, hemoglobin and the liver. In 1913, along with a talented medical student, Charles W. Hooper, Whipple was able to show, that bile pigments could be produced outside of the liver, solely from the breakdown of hemoglobin in the blood. Using this experiment as a starting point, Whipple set a new course for his studies. Since bile pigments are formed from hemoglobin, Whipple reasoned, that he should tackle the question of hemoglobin itself, beginning with how it is manufactured. It was a fateful decision.
In 1914, Whipple accepted a position as a director of the Hooper Foundation for Medical Research at the University of California, San Francisco. The same year, he also married his long-time sweetheart, Katharine Ball Waring, and the couple moved to California. Though burdened with administrative duties, Whipple continued his researches into hemoglobin production. His assistant, Hooper, came with him to California and together with a new assistant, Frieda Robscheit-Robbins, they began experiments, which would lead to a major breakthrough. By systematically bleeding laboratory dogs, Whipple and his team were able to induce a controlled anemic condition. They then tested various foods and their effects upon hemoglobin regeneration, finding that a diet of liver produced a pronounced increase in hemoglobin regeneration. While such short term effects were encouraging, they were still far from conclusive.
Though in 1920 Whipple was named a dean of the UCSF (University of California, San Francisco) School of Medicine, he remained in California for just a year before accepting (somewhat reluctantly) a similar position at a new medical complex at the University of Rochester in New York — a facility, heavily endowed by Kodak founder George Eastman and the Rockefeller Foundation. Courted enthusiastically by Eastman and university president Rush Rhees, Whipple moved home and laboratory to New York, bringing Robscheit-Robbins and the group of anemic dogs with him.
The next decade proved busy for Whipple: he directed the building and staffing of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, all the while directing further hemoglobin research. Perfecting their technique of bleeding the dogs, Whipple and Robscheit-Robbins induced long-term anemia and were able to prove conclusively, that a liver diet was successful in counteracting its effects by increasing the production of hemoglobin. His results were published in 1925, and the pharmaceutical firm of Eli Lilly, with Whipple’s cooperation, began producing a commercially available liver extract within a year. Whipple refused to patent his findings and directed all royalties from the sales of the extract to fund additional research. Whipple’s experiments paved the way for further studies by two Boston researchers, George Richards Minot and William P. Murphy, who used liver therapy to successfully treat pernicious anemia in 1926.
Whipple’s work soon won international repute and in 1934 he received word, that he, along with Minot and Murphy, was going to receive the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their separate work in liver therapy. Whipple did not let fame slow him down. He continued his hemoglobin experiments, turning now to the study of iron in the body and utilizing the new technology of radioisotope elements to follow the distribution of iron in the body. He also made important contributions to the study of an anemic disorder peculiar to people of Mediterranean extraction, a disorder, for which Whipple suggested the name thalassemia. Other studies involved the use of plasma or tissue proteins to rebuild hemoglobin in cases of anemia. A spin-off of this latter research was the development of intravenous feeding.
Despite the administrative and research duties, that pressed upon him, George did not forget his students, and took real pleasure in teaching. When in later years he was offered the position of a director of the Rockefeller Institute, he politely, but adamantly declined, preferring his classes and his research. Whipple finally relinquished his chair as dean in 1953 at the age of seventy-five, after a long and distinguished career, that had seen the once-small university grow to more than twelve thousand graduates in medicine and other related fields. He remained on the faculty of the University of Rochester, teaching pathology until 1955. In 1963, he established a medical and dental library for the university, valued at 750.000 dollars.
Moreover, during his career, namely between 1927 and 1943, George was a trustee of Rockefeller Foundation.
Quotations:
"Any investigator is indeed fortunate, who can contribute a tiny stone to the great edifice, which we call scientific truth."
"It is obvious to any student of anemia, that a beginning has been made, but our knowledge of pigment metabolism and hemoglobin regeneration is inadequate in every respect. This is a stimulating outlook for the numerous investigators in this field and we may confidently expect much progress in the near future."
Membership
George was an honorary member of the International Association for Dental Research and Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Also, he was a member of the Association of American Physicians, American Physiological Society, American Medical Association, United States National Academy of Sciences, American Philosophical Society, Sigma Xi, Alpha Omega Alpha, Phi Beta Kappa, Beta Theta Pi and Phi Chi.
American Society for Experimental Pathology
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United States
1925
American Association of Pathologists and Bacteriologists
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United States
1930
Personality
When George was a child, he loved hunting, fishing and camping.
His life was long and productive. George was an active outdoorsman well into his ninth decade.
Connections
George married Katherine Ball Waring on June 24, 1914. Their marriage produced two children — George Hoyt Whipple and Barbara Whipple.
in 1962, from the United States National Academy of Sciences, for his contributions of many biological discoveries basic for advances in clinical and experimental medicine
in 1962, from the United States National Academy of Sciences, for his contributions of many biological discoveries basic for advances in clinical and experimental medicine