Erlanger, Joseph (1874-1965)

Erlanger is a US physiologist who, in collaboration with Herbert Gasser, developed techniques for recording nerve impulses using a cathode ray oscilloscope.

In 1944 they shared the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for demonstrating that different fibers in the same nerve cord can have different functions.

Erlanger qualified at the University of California and the John Hopkins Medical School (1899), where he worked for a seven years. He was appointed professor of physiology at the University of Wisconsin (1906-1910) and there began a successful collaboration with his student Gasser. Erlanger moved to the Washington University, St. Louis (1910-46), and Gasser joined him soon after.

There they studied various means of applying electronics to physiological research. They devised a method of applying electric responses occurring in an individual nerve fiber and were able to record them using the oscilloscope.

An amplified impulse produced a characteristics wave form on the screen, which could then be studied. In 1932 Erlanger and Gasser found that the fibers within a nerve conduct impulses at different rate, depending on fibers thickness, and that each fiber has a different threshold of excitability. Different fibers produced different wave forms on the screen, indicating that different types of impulses were being passed.

Sir James Chadwick

James Chadwick was born in Bollington near Manchester, UK in 1891. He was awarded Nobel Prize for physics in 1935 for the discovery of neutron.

When his father left for Manchester to establish a laundry business, young Chadwick stayed on with his grandmother and received his primary education at the local school.

After attending Manchester High School, he entered Manchester University.

He later graduated with first first class degree in physics in 1911. Upon graduating Chadwick was accepted by Rutherford as a research student for the MSc degree at Manchester. He worked in the Physical Laboratory at Manchester University on various problems of radioactivity under Rutherford. He obtained is master’s degree in 1913.

In the early 1900 scientists were aware that atoms contain electrically charged particles called electrons and protons. Scientists also believed that these must be uncharged particles in an atom.

In 1932, Chadwick showed that the radiation from the element beryllium, caused by bombardments of alpha particles is actually a stream of electricity neutron particles. He called these particles ‘neutron’.

Chadwick also explained the existence of isotope. An isotope of an element has the same number of protons but different number of neutrons and has therefore a different atomic weight.
Sir James Chadwick

Dr. Willem Karel Dicke – researcher of celiac disease (1905 – 1962)

Willem Karel Dicke, born in 1905, was one of the pioneer researchers in celiac disease and its treatment.

He studied medicine in Leiden specialized in pediatrics.

When Dicke began practicing medicine, celiac disease was commonly referred to as ‘Gee-Herter’ disease, and the two main treatments were rest and an altered diet

British physician Samuel Gee in 1888 wrote of celiac disease, ‘if the patient can be cured at all it must be means of diet.’

During World War II, In Netherlands when the wheat flour was scarce, Dicke notice something unusual about his pediatric patents: they were dying a lot less often.

He attributed this to a shortage of bread. He was convinced that removing wheat from his patient’s diet was essential for improving their condition.

When the war ended and bread supplies returned children died at the same pace as they had before.

Since Willem Karel Dicke was the first to draw a connection between wheat and celiac disease, he is credited as being the pioneer of the gluten-free diet.
Dr. Willem Karel Dicke – researcher of celiac disease (1905 – 1962)

Edward Bright Vedder (1878-1952)

US born physician and scientists, Edward Bright Vedder was a director of pathology at the Army Medical School from 1904-1913. From 1925 to 1929, he served as a chief of medical research for the chemical warfare.

Later he was sent to the Philippines, where he developed his research and laboratory skills in the study of malaria, amoebic dysentery dengue and a host of other tropical diseases.

Beriberi remained a serious and common illness in the Far East. Vedder treated beriberi successfully with rice polishing. The explanation was given that the presence of most of the outer layers of the caryopsis in undermilled and especially in parboiled rice prevented the onset of the disease.

He advised local Philippine scouts under American army officers to change their rations from polished white rice to a mixture of dried beans and unpolished brown rice.

In 1933 William succeeded in determining the structure of thiamine, ahead of his many competitors. Three years later together with Joseph K. Cline and Jacob Finkeltstein, he had synthesis thiamine.

In 1925, he authored Medical Aspects of Chemical Warfare, which became a standard work on the effects of chemical weapons.
Edward Bright Vedder (1878-1952)

Dr Emil Christian Hansen (1842-1909)

Emil Christian Hansen came from a modest family. Originally trained as a house painter and a primary school teacher, Hansen later became a botanist and a mycologist. Hansen is said to have written novels and sold them: Form this income he financed his studies.

Emil Christian Hansen in 1876 was awarded a gold medal by the University of Copenhagen for his study of the coprophilous fungi of Denmark and three years later gained a PhD for a thesis on yeasts.

In 1877, he was employed as a fermentation physiologist as the Carlsberg Brewery. In 1883, Hansen succeeded in producing bottom-fermented beer on a large scale for the first time, using ‘the sop-called pure culture yeast’.

Hansen used a dilution method to isolate pure cultures of brewing yeast, derived from a mixed culture that occasionally produced poor quality beer.

This made it possible to prevent beer form being spoiled by the action of wild yeasts in the vat. In the same year, for the first time in history, the Carlsberg Brewery started industrial production of lager beer with one of the Hansen’s pure culture.
Dr Emil Christian Hansen (1842-1909)

Francis Peyton Rous MD (1879 – 1970)

Francis Peyton Rous MD (1879 – 1970)
Francis Peyton Rous, US pathologist who pioneered cancer research and discovered that cancer can be caused by a virus, though his work was not recognized until fifty six years later when he was awarded the 1966 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

Rous qualified at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore (1900), and became an instructor in pathology at the University of Michigan. In 1909 he began work on a programme of cancer research at the Rockefeller Institute and after only a few weeks, he managed to transplant a naturally occurring connective tissue tumor (Rous sarcoma) from one hen to another by grafting tumor cells. More significantly, he showed that an injection of a free cells filtrate of the tumor could still cause cancer, suggesting a viral cause. This discovery was regarded with suspicion for many years although Rous and his co-workers were able to show the nature of the growth and the causal agent (caused the Rous sarcoma virus). Disheartened, Rous abandoned cancer research and carried out important work on the functions of the gall; bladder and the difference in acidity of animal tissue; during World War I he devised methods of preserving blood for several weeks.

In 1933, after R. E Shope discovered a growth in rabbits that often progressed to cancer, Rous took up his studies again and demonstrated several ways in which carcinogenic chemicals and tumor-inducing-viruses act together to speed up tumor production. He also discovered that carcinogenic action consists of two phases – initiation, which gives a cell malignant potential; and promotion, in which the potential is realized as an actively growing cancer. In his later years Rous was awarded many honors, including the Nobel Prize, which he shared with Charles B. Higgins.
Francis Peyton Rous MD (1879 – 1970)